Within cyber security, the human element represents one of the greatest untapped opportunities for increasing the effectiveness of network defenses. However, there has been little research to understand the human dimension in cyber operations. To better understand the needs and priorities for research and development to address these issues, a workshop was conducted August 28-29, 2012 in Washington DC. A synthesis was developed that captured the key issues and associated research questions. Research and development needs were identified that fell into three parallel paths: (1) human factors analysis and scientific studies to establish foundational knowledge concerning factors underlying the performance of cyber defenders; (2) development of models that capture key processes that mediate interactions between defenders, users, adversaries and the public; and (3) development of a multi-purpose test environment for conducting controlled experiments that enables systems and human performance measurement. These research and development investments would transform cyber operations from an art to a science, enabling systems solutions to be engineered to address a range of situations. Organizations would be able to move beyond the current state where key decisions (e.g. personnel assignment) are made on a largely ad hoc basis to a state in which there exist institutionalized processes for assuring the right people are doing the right jobs in the right way. These developments lay the groundwork for emergence of a professional class of cyber defenders with defined roles and career progressions, with higher levels of personnel commitment and retention. Finally, the operational impact would be evident in improved performance, accompanied by a shift to a more proactive response in which defenders have the capacity to exert greater control over the cyber battlespace.

The very low birth weight (VLBW) infant is at great risk for marked dysbiosis of the gut microbiome due to multiple factors, including physiological immaturity and prenatal/postnatal influences that disrupt the development of a normal gut flora. However, little is known about the developmental succession of the microbiota in preterm infants as they grow and mature. This review provides a synthesis of our understanding of the normal development of the infant gut microbiome and contrasts this with dysbiotic development in the VLBW infant. The role of human milk in normal gut microbial development is emphasized, along with the role of the gut microbiome in immune development and gastroenteric health. Current research provides evidence that the gut microbiome interacts extensively with many physiological systems and metabolic processes in the developing infant. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are currently no studies prospectively mapping the gut microbiome of VLBW infants through early childhood. This knowledge gap must be filled to inform a healthcare system that can provide for the growth, health, and development of VLBW infants. In conclusion, the study speculates about how the VLBW infants gut microbiome might function through host-microbe interactions to contribute to the sequelae of preterm birth, including its influence on growth, development, and general health of the infant host.

The very low birth weight (VLBW) infant is at great risk for marked dysbiosis of the gut microbiome due to multiple factors, including physiological immaturity and prenatal/postnatal influences that disrupt the development of a normal gut flora. However, little is known about the developmental succession of the microbiota in preterm infants as they grow and mature. This review provides a synthesis of our understanding of the normal development of the infant gut microbiome and contrasts this with dysbiotic development in the VLBW infant. The role of human milk in normal gut microbial development is emphasized, along with the role ofmoreÂ Â» the gut microbiome in immune development and gastroenteric health. Current research provides evidence that the gut microbiome interacts extensively with many physiological systems and metabolic processes in the developing infant. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are currently no studies prospectively mapping the gut microbiome of VLBW infants through early childhood. This knowledge gap must be filled to inform a healthcare system that can provide for the growth, health, and development of VLBW infants. In conclusion, the study speculates about how the VLBW infantsâ gut microbiome might function through host-microbe interactions to contribute to the sequelae of preterm birth, including its influence on growth, development, and general health of the infant host.Â«Â less

The sixth in a series of documents published by the Department of Housng and UrbanDevelopment (HUD) to assist in the formulation of policy decision contains 247 abstracts entered in the HUD USER automated data base during the past six months, bringing the data base total to 3,583 documents. There are 45 subject areas in the main section, with the abstracts in each area arranged alphabetically by title. Each abstract is identified by an order number and is followed by descriptive keywords. Other listings of the documents are alphabetical, numerical, by personal or corporate author, by contract and grant number, and by subject index.

Sustainability assessment is increasingly being viewed as an important tool to aid in the shift towards sustainable urban ecosystems. An urban ecosystem is a dynamic system and requires regular monitoring and assessment through a set of relevant indicators. An indicator is a parameter which provides information about the state of the environment by producing a quantitative value. Indicator-based sustainability assessment needs to be considered on all spatial scales to provide efficient information of urban ecosystem sustainability. The detailed data is necessary to assess environmental change in urban ecosystems at local scale and easily transfer this information to the national and global scales. This paper proposes a set of key micro-level urban ecosystem indicators for monitoring the sustainability of residential developments. The proposed indicator framework measures the sustainability performance of urban ecosystem in 3 main categories including: natural environment, built environment, and socio-economic environment which are made up of 9 sub-categories, consisting of 23 indicators. This paper also describes theoretical foundations for the selection of each indicator with reference to the literature [Turkish] Highlights: â¢ As the impacts of environmental problems have multi-scale characteristics, sustainability assessment needs to be considered on all scales. â¢ The detailed data is necessary to assess local environmental change in urban ecosystems to provide insights into the national and global scales. â¢ This paper proposes a set of key micro-level urban ecosystem indicators for monitoring the sustainability of residential developments. â¢ This paper also describes theoretical foundations for the selection of each indicator with reference to the literature.

related to DOE Furnace NOPR LCC model and TSD Priority Questions A) It appears that the assignment of base case efficiency for each individual home is chosen based on a random assignment in the Base Case AFUE sheet D12. This ignores the likelihood that there is an economic motive for consumers in selecting condensing vs. non-condensing furnaces. That is, consumers who have good payback economics for condensing furnaces are actually less likely to be affected by a rule than those with poor

This report documents the findings at an Ultraconductive Copper Strategy Meeting held on March 11, 2015 in Washington DC. The aim of this meeting was to bring together researchers of ultraconductive copper in the U.S. to identify and prioritize critical non-proprietary research activities that will enhance the understanding in the material and accelerate its development into practical conductors. Every effort has been made to ensure that the discussion and findings are accurately reported in this document.

Federal aappropriations for the Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment and for sundry independent agencies, boards, commissions, corporations, and offices are enumerated and discussed. Recommendations by the House Committee on Appropriations are given along with a detailed description of each program considered. Specific programs discussed include: urban research, urbandevelopment, urban planning, solar energy, environmental quality, space stations, space shuttle orbiters, scientific research and education, and selective service. This bill, H.R. 5713, makes appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1985.

Recent terrorist threats and actions have lead to a renewed interest in the technical field of large scale, urban environment decontamination. One of the driving forces for this interest is the prospect for the cleanup and removal of radioactive dispersal device (RDD or 'dirty bomb') residues. In response, the United States Government has spent many millions of dollars investigating RDD contamination and novel decontamination methodologies. The efficiency of RDD cleanup response will be improved with these new developments and a better understanding of the 'old reliable' methodologies. While an RDD is primarily an economic and psychological weapon, the need to cleanup and return valuable or culturally significant resources to the public is nonetheless valid. Several private companies, universities and National Laboratories are currently developing novel RDD cleanup technologies. Because of its longstanding association with radioactive facilities, the U. S. Department of Energy National Laboratories are at the forefront in developing and testing new RDD decontamination methods. However, such cleanup technologies are likely to be fairly task specific; while many different contamination mechanisms, substrate and environmental conditions will make actual application more complicated. Some major efforts have also been made to model potential contamination, to evaluate both old and new decontamination techniques and to assess their readiness for use. There are a number of significant lessons that can be gained from a look at previous large scale cleanup projects. Too often we are quick to apply a costly 'package and dispose' method when sound technological cleaning approaches are available. Understanding historical perspectives, advanced planning and constant technology improvement are essential to successful decontamination. (authors)

Sustainability indicators have been widely developed to monitor and assess sustainable development. They are expected to guide political decision-making based on their capability to represent states and trends of development. However, using indicators to assess the sustainability of urban strategies and policies has limitations - as they neither reflect the systemic interactions among them, nor provide normative indications in what direction they should be developed. This paper uses a semi-quantitative systematic model tool (Sensitivity Model Tools, SM) to analyze the role of urbandevelopment in Taiwan's sustainability. The results indicate that the natural environment in urban area is one of the most critical components and the urban economic production plays a highly active role in affecting Taiwan's sustainable development. The semi-quantitative simulation model integrates sustainability indicators and urbandevelopment policy to provide decision-makers with information about the impacts of their decisions on urbandevelopment. The system approach incorporated by this paper can be seen as a necessary, but not sufficient, condition for a sustainability assessment. The participatory process of expert participants for providing judgments on the relations between indicator variables is also discussed.

The budget appropriations for FY 1983 for the National Science Foundation, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment-Independent Agencies are presented.

A method is provided for selecting a data source for transmission on one of several logical (virtual) lanes embodied in a single physical connection. Lanes are assigned to either a high priority class or to a low priority class. One of six conditions is employed to determine when re-arbitration of lane priorities is desired. When this occurs a next source for transmission is selected based on a the specification of the maximum number of high priority packets that can be sent after a lower priority transmission has been interrupted. Alternatively, a next source for transmission is selected based on a the specification of the maximum number of high priority packets that can be sent while a lower priority packet is waiting. If initialized correctly, the arbiter keeps all of the packets of a high priority packet contiguous, while allowing lower priority packets to be interrupted by the higher priority packets, but not to the point of starvation of the lower priority packets.

Lists 2011 Priority Renewable Energy Projects BLM Lists 2011 Priority Renewable Energy Projects March 23, 2011 - 1:54pm Addthis The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced on March 8 its 2011 list of 19 priority projects for developing onshore renewable energy on national public lands. The priority list includes nine solar projects, five wind projects, and five geothermal projects throughout the western United States. The solar projects-eight in California and one in Arizona-have a potential

The Order establishes responsibilities for administration of the DOE and NNSA priorities and allocations program for industrial products, materials, and services and requirements for maintaining a system for procurement of industrial products, materials, and services programs that promote the national defense and programs that are determined by DOE to maximize domestic energy supplies. Supersedes DOE O 5560.1A.

The Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment (HUD) residential solar heating and cooling demonstration program provided funding support for over 600 solar projects. These projects provide the largest single data base of solar heating and cooling experience now available. These data suggest that maintenance and system operation have been mixed even though system configurations are similar throughout the program. HUD has been involved in the upgrading of one-third of the 600 solar projects and now can report that projects can be maintained with a more uniform level of effort.

The Middle Urals is an important Russian industrial region. The key industries are also the most environmentally damaging: mining, metallurgical and chemical industries. There are some 600 large-sized and medium-sized enterprises located within the Middle Urals` region. Their annual solid and gaseous chemical releases have led to exceeding some maximum permissible contaminant concentrations by factors of tens and hundreds. The environmental problems of the Middle Urals are of such magnitude, seriousness, and urgency that the limited available resources can be applied only to the problems of the highest priority in the most cost-effective way. By the combined efforts of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (USA), Institute of Industrial Ecology (Ekaterinburg, Russia) and Russian Federal Nuclear Center (Snezhinsk, Russia) the project on Environmental Priorities Assessment was initiated in 1993. Because the project will cut across a spectrum of Russian environmental, social, and political issues, it has been established as a genuine Russian effort led by Russian principals. Russian participants are the prime movers and decision-makers, and LLNL participants are advisors. A preliminary project has been completed to gather relevant environmental data and to develop a formal proposal for the full priorities assessment project for submittal to the International Science and Technology Center. The proposed priorities assessment methodology will be described in this paper. The specific objectives of this project are to develop and to implement a methodology to establish Russian priorities for future pollution prevention efforts in a limited geographic region of the Middle Urals (a part of Chelyabinsk and Sverdlovsk Oblasts). This methodology will be developed on two geographic levels: local (town scale) and regional (region scale). Detailed environmental analysis will be performed on a local scale and extrapolated to the regional scale.

Priority Data Fields for the Building Performance Database (Updated 2014-12) Below is list of data fields ranked as the the priority fields in data collection for the purposes of BPD. These field names use the the Building Energy Data Exchange Specification 1.0 terms in order to clearly communicate the content of the fields and to facilitate easier data transfer. These fields have been determined to provide enough information to compare building energy performance. Mandatory fields are

Recent terrorist threats and actual events have lead to a renewed interest in the technical field of large scale, urban environment decontamination. One of the driving forces for this interest is the real potential for the cleanup and removal of radioactive dispersal device (RDD or dirty bomb) residues. In response the U. S. Government has spent many millions of dollars investigating RDD contamination and novel decontamination methodologies. Interest in chemical and biological (CB) cleanup has also peaked with the threat of terrorist action like the anthrax attack at the Hart Senate Office Building and with catastrophic natural events such as Hurricane Katrina. The efficiency of cleanup response will be improved with these new developments and a better understanding of the old reliable methodologies. Perhaps the most interesting area of investigation for large area decontamination is that of the RDD. While primarily an economic and psychological weapon, the need to cleanup and return valuable or culturally significant resources to the public is nonetheless valid. Several private companies, universities and National Laboratories are currently developing novel RDD cleanup technologies. Because of its longstanding association with radioactive facilities, the U. S. Department of Energy National Laboratories are at the forefront in developing and testing new RDD decontamination methods. However, such cleanup technologies are likely to be fairly task specific; while many different contamination mechanisms, substrate and environmental conditions will make actual application more complicated. Some major efforts have also been made to model potential contamination, to evaluate both old and new decontamination techniques and to assess their readiness for use. Non-radioactive, CB threats each have unique decontamination challenges and recent events have provided some examples. The U. S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as lead agency for these emergency cleanup

Hopping robots provide the possibility of breaking the link between the size of a ground vehicle and the largest obstacle that it can overcome. For more than a decade, DARPA and Sandia National Laboratories have been developing small-scale hopping robot technology, first as part of purely hopping platforms and, more recently, as part of platforms that are capable of both wheeled and hopping locomotion. In this paper we introduce the Urban Hopper robot and summarize its capabilities. The advantages of hopping for overcoming certain obstacles are discussed. Several configurations of the Urban Hopper are described, as are intelligent capabilities of the system. Key challenges are discussed.

is the First Priority The project team completed a number of overlapping safety methods to assure the safety of individuals operating and in proximity to the hydrogen fuel cell including: â Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA) which identifies potential failure points and devises ways to mitigate them (engineered and administrative/operational controls). â Independent review and approval of the design by the Hydrogen Safety Panel and the US Coast Guard, and informational review by the

WIPP UPDATE: January 21, 2015 Roof Separation Highlights Bolting Priority On January 15, Mining and Ground Control Engineers at WIPP discovered that a portion of the ceiling in the Panel 3 access drift had fallen in a restricted access area. The roof fall was discovered during routine ground control and bulkhead inspections conducted by WIPP geotechnical staff, and the section that fell was estimated to be approximately 8' long by 8'wide and 24" thick. Access to this area has been

A multidisciplinary team of IEQ and energy researchers has defined a program of priority energy-related IEQ research. This paper describes the methods employed to develop the agenda, and 35 high priority research and development (R&D) project areas related to four broad goals: (1) identifying IEQ problems and opportunities; (2) developing and evaluating energy-efficient technologies for improving IEQ; (3) developing and evaluating energy-efficient practices for improving IEQ; and (4) encouraging or assisting the implementation of technologies or practices for improving IEQ. The identified R&D priorities reflect a strong need to benchmark IEQ conditions in small commercial buildings, schools, and residences. The R&D priorities also reflect the need to better understand how people are affected by IEQ conditions and by the related building characteristics and operation and maintenance practices. The associated research findings will provide a clearer definition of acceptable IEQ that is required to guide the development of technologies, practices, standards, and guidelines. Quantifying the effects of building characteristics and practices on IEQ conditions, in order to provide the basis for development of energy efficient and effective IEQ control measures, was also considered a priority. The development or advancement in a broad range of IEQ tools, technologies, and practices are also a major component of the priority research agenda. Consistent with the focus on ''energy-related'' research priorities, building ventilation and heating, ventilating and air conditioning (HVAC) systems and processes are very prominent in the agenda. Research related to moisture and microbiological problems, particularly within hot and humid climates, is also prominent within the agenda. The agenda tends to emphasize research on residences, small commercial buildings, and schools because these types of buildings have been underrepresented in prior research. Most of the research areas

Priority service is a special kind of product differentiation that increases the range of choices available to customers. The basic idea is to unbundle service reliability into a spectrum of priority classes, each priced to reflect the cost to the utility of providing that quality of service. This report summarizes the concepts and insights developed during the initial phase of research, addressing issues of incentives, pricing, capacity planning, priority insurance, and market organizations.

The National Economic and Social Development Plans (NESDPs) of cities in China, given their comprehensive, integrated and strategic nature, have significant and profound impacts on the development of cities and their embedded ecological environments. Strategic Environmental Assessments (SEAs) on city NESDPs have the potential to improve environmental policy integration at strategic level and to safeguard the sustainable development of cities. However, these plans are normally exempted from the current SEA requirement in China. We argue that it is more feasible to apply SEAs on city NESDPs before SEAs are expanded to higher level NESDPs in China. This article attempts to propose a China-specific institutional design for SEAs on city NESDPs based on experiments in selected cities and within the current legal framework. To obtain a holistic view about the long-term development of cities, more qualitative and descriptive analysis-based assessment methods should be adopted to broaden participation, to encourage the exchange of information and to reach consensus. - Highlights: > National Economic and Social Development Plans for Cities (NESDPs) in China is a very popular and significant decision made by municipal government. > We propose a institutional framework to conduct strategic environmental assessment to NESDPs. > The key features of the institutional framework are the independent SEA approval committee and a professional consulting agency.

This paper discusses the impact of two strategies in an urban environment for effecting substantial energy savings. They are the use of light colored materials on roofing and other flat surfaces, and the planting of additional trees. The lighter colored roofing materials will reflect more solar heat, resulting in lowered air conditioning costs. The additional trees will provide more shading, thereby increasing comfort, and will act as an aid in dropping the ambient temperature by means of evapotranspiration through the leaf systems. Both of these effects will reduce the direct energy inputs leading to air conditioning loads in an urban setting, and indirectly they will have an impact on urban smog though the lowered ambient temperature. The authors also discuss the applications of these ideas in developing countries, where often building energy costs can consume half of developed electrical capacity, and which tend to be in warmer climates. The density of many major urban areas in developing countries make the use of trees much harder to implement.

This report determines the nature and scope of the hazardous waste problem affecting HUD programs and community development and redevelopment activities. It defines the problem and develops categories of hazardous wastes most applicable to HUD. The report identifies sources of hazardous waste and gives examples of their impacts. The role of HUD and other agencies in controlling hazardous waste is reviewed, and recommendations are made for mitigating known and potential impacts. Three case studies -- in Dover Township and Elizabeth, N.J., and in Richmond, Va., illustrate the wide range of impacts made possible because of improper handling of or lack of appreciation for hazardous substances. The report suggests that a Hazard Identification Guidebook be developed, similar to others addressing housing safety and noise assessment, that would require HUD personnel to carry out a number of investigations on and around a site. This process is briefly described here and could serve as a basis for a guidebook. Flow charts illustrate this process. Tables and 23 references are supplied.

DOE Assistant Secretary for Environmental Management Monica Regalbuto shared her vision for EM, laid out cleanup priorities, and emphasized the need to better leverage technology development to reduce costs in her address at DOEâs first National Cleanup Workshop.

Highlights: â¢ We tested a new methodology for monitoring land take and its effects on C storage. â¢ The ecological impact of urban growth derives from the previous land use. â¢ C loss increases with the naturalness of the territory. â¢ Different urban assets may imply different forms of land take containment. Land take due to urbanization triggers a series of negative environmental impacts with direct effects on quality of life for people living in cities. Changes in ecosystem services are associated with land take, among which is the immediate C loss due to land use conversion. Land use change monitoring represents the first step in quantifying land take and its drivers and impacts. To this end, we propose an innovative methodology for monitoring land take and its effects on ecosystem services (in particular, C loss) under multi-scale contexts. The devised approach was tested in two areas with similar sizes, but different land take levels during the time-span 1990â2008 in Central Italy (the Province of Rome and the Molise Region). The estimates of total coverage of built up areas were calculated using point sampling. The area of the urban patches including each sampling point classified as built up areas in the year 1990 and/or in the year 2008 is used to estimate total abundance and average area of built up areas. Biophysical and economic values for carbon loss associated with land take were calculated using InVEST. Although land take was 7â8 times higher in the Province of Rome (from 15.1% in 1990 to 20.4% in 2008) than in Molise region, our findings show that its relative impact on C storage is higher in the latter, where the urban growth consistently affects not only croplands but also semi-natural land uses such as grasslands and other wooded lands. The total C loss due to land take has been estimated in 1.6 million Mg C, corresponding to almost 355 million â¬. Finally, the paper discusses the main characteristics of urban growth and their

2 "Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Priorities" 2016-02 "Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Priorities" It is the intent of this recommendation that the NNMCAB have input into developing the budget priorities for the FY 2018, in order to assist in the completion of legacy clean-up work to be included in the newly established Order on Consent. It is also intended to maximize time and effort and taxpayer dollars. Rec 2016-02 - March 30, 2016 (510.03 KB) More Documents & Publications 2016-03

In this paper energy related CO2 emission projections of China by 2030 are given. CO2 mitigation potential and technology options in main fields of energy conservation and energy substitution are analyzed. CO2 reduction costs of main mitigation technologies are estimated and the AHP approach is used for helping assessment of priority technologies.

Priorities for basic research important to the future developments of solar energy are idenified, described, and recommended. SERI surveyed more than 120 leading scientists who were engaged in or knowledgeable of solar-related research. The result is an amalgam of national scientific opinion representing the views of key researchers in relevant disciplines and of SERI staff members. The scientific disciplines included in the report are: chemistry, biology, materials sciences, engineering and mathematics, and the social and behavioral sciences. Each discipline is subdivided into two to five topical areas-and, within each topical area, research needs are described and ranked according to the priorities suggested in the survey. Three categories of priority were established: crucial, important, and needed. A narrative accompanying the description of research needs in each topical area discusses the importance of research in the area for solar energy development and presents the bases for the priority rankings recommended.

Safety Integrated Safety Management Voluntary Protection Program VPP Star Status Environment Work Smart Standards Oak Ridge Institute for Science Education Safety at ORISE At the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) safety is our number one priority. We not only have a tradition of safety at work, but strongly encourage our employees to carry this mindset beyond the workplace and into their homes and communities. Employees are trained in how to work safely and are required to

This paper discusses the effects of changing national policy priorities regarding the use of reformulated fuels and oxygenated fuels. The importance of the use of oxygenated fuels in reducing carbon monoxide pollution of the atmosphere and ways for people to work together to achieve this goal are discussed. MTBE and ETBE are important additives in the fuels industry and the economic outlook affecting their usage is briefly described.

Indicating the priority of a spatially fixed, activated alarm tile on an alarm tile array by a shape coding at the tile, and preferably using the same shape coding wherever the same alarm condition is indicated elsewhere in the control room. The status of an alarm tile can change automatically or by operator acknowledgement, but tones and/or flashing cues continue to provide status information to the operator.

Fulfilling the Commitments on UN FCCC through the U.S. Country Studies Program, Kazakstan has developed the national GHG Inventory, vulnerability and adaptation assessment and estimated the possibility of mitigation measures in certain sectors. Next step is developing National Climate Change Action Plan. That process includes such major steps as setting priorities in mitigation measures and technologies, their comprehensive evaluation, preparation implementation strategies, developing the procedure of incorporation of the National Action Plan into other development plans and programs. This paper presents programs and measures that can reduce GHG emissions in non-energy sector. Measures in land-use change and forestry, agriculture and coal mining are considered. Current situation in non-energy sector of Kazakstan is discussed. The amount of GHG emissions reduction and cost analysis presented in this paper was developed with the use of IPCC recommendations.

Department of Energy 3 Reemployment Priority List Selections POLICY GUIDANCE MEMORANDUM #13 Reemployment Priority List Selections The Department's RPL is designed to provide priority consideration to employees who have lost their jobs through reduction in force, or who have fully recovered from a compensable injury after more than 1 year. Employees may only receive priority consideration for positions that they are well-qualified for and that are in the local commuting area from which

The Minimum Property Standards for Housing 4910.1 were developed to provide a sound technical basis for housing under numerous programs of the Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment (HUD). These Intermediate Minimum Property Standards for Solar Heating and Domestic Hot Water Systems are intended to provide a companion technical basis for the planning and design of solar heating and domestic hot water systems. These standards have been prepared as a supplement to the Minimum Property Standards (MPS) and deal only with aspects of planning and design that are different from conventional housing by reason of the solar systems under consideration. The document contains requirements and standards applicable to one- and two-family dwellings, multifamily housing, and nursing homes and intermediate care facilities references made in the text to the MPS refer to the same section in the Minimum Property Standards for Housing 4910.1.

Department of Energy 2 "Budget Priorities for FY 2016 for LANL EM Clean-up Work" 2015-02 "Budget Priorities for FY 2016 for LANL EM Clean-up Work" It is the intent of the of this recommendation that the NNMCAB have input into developing the budget priorities for FY 2016, in order to assist in the completion of clean up scope on the CO requirements. Rec 2015-02 - March 11, 2015 (288.7

In December 1999, the U.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment (HUD) entered into an Interagency Agreement (IAA) with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and its Rebuild America Program to promote conservation and reduce utility costs in public housing through forums, research, demonstration, and evaluation. The IAA was effectively implemented from November 2000 to December 2002. Under the IAA, Rebuild America established 31 new partnerships with public housing authorities, started 6 new partnerships with organizations that focus on public housing, and initiated new projects with 6 existing Rebuild America public housing partnerships. These 43 partnerships directly involved 51 public housing authorities in 77 energy-related projects (several of the 43 partnerships involved multiple housing authorities and projects). Rebuild America assistance on these projects encompassed a wide range of activities, including planning assistance on energy management and capital investment, reviews of utility consumption and metering options, assistance in implementing HUD's energy incentives, design reviews and energy analyses, and assistance in the development of energy projects and resident programs. In addition, Rebuild America made presentations to housing authorities on energy efficiency opportunities and solutions and provided energy training on selected topics at 23 conferences and workshops that impacted many more housing authorities. This report provides an overview of the accomplishments achieved under the IAA; describes the 77 projects that have been completed, are under way, or are planned; and summarizes the presentations and training provided.

This study assesses the number of industries in Pakistan, the total discharge of wastewater, the biological oxygen demand (BOD) load, and the toxicity of the wastewater. The industrial sector is a major contributor to water pollution, with high levels of BOD, heavy metals, and toxic compounds. Only 30 industries have installed water pollution control equipment, and most are working at a very low operational level. Priority industrial sectors for pollution control are medium- to large-scale textile industries and small-scale tanneries and electroplating industries. Each day the textile industries discharge about 85,000 m{sup 3} of wastewater with a high BOD, while the electroplating industries discharge about 23,000 m{sup 3} of highly toxic and hazardous wastewater. Various in-plant modifications can reduce wastewater discharges. Economic incentives, like tax rebates, subsidies, and soft loans, could be an option for motivating medium- to large-scale industries to control water pollution. Central treatment plants may be constructed for treating wastewater generated by small-scale industries. The estimated costs for the treatment of textile and electroplating wastewater are given. The legislative structure in Pakistan is insufficient for control of industrial pollution; not only do existing laws need revision, but more laws and regulations are needed to improve the state of affairs, and enforcement agencies need to be strengthened. 15 refs., 1 fig., 9 tabs.

Industry and government spend in excess of $100 billion each year on pollution control. These funds are producing cleaner land, air, and water. They have also spawned a pollution control industry which today employs more than 175,000 people. While significant, this is only the initial investment of capital and human talent that cleaning up the environment will demand through the 1990's and into the next century. Industry is in the early phases of an explosion of environmentally-oriented activity. Industries who manage their priorities and respond proactively on environmental issues will be the more profitable in an economy increasingly influenced by environmental regulations and consumer activism. A series of issues will most likely dominate management of environmental concerns, including: pollution prevention--reducing pollutants before having to clean them up; recycling--reuse limits disposal problems while reducing pollutants generated by new manufacturing; private-public partnerships--these contractual relationships between public and private partners will become increasingly popular; energy use although large strides have been made in energy conservation, much remains to be done; technology innovation--this is the most fundamental tool for use in improving environmental quality. In order for industry to respond to the need, government will have to implement a series of economic, environmental, and social policies. Business then becomes the key element in advancing the policies established by government.

This report identifies, describes, and recommends priorities for basic research important to the future development of solar energy. In response to a request from the US Department of Energy, SERI surveyed more than 120 leading scientists who were engaged in or knowledgeable of solar-related research. SERI scientists relied heavily on the opinions of scientists polled, but weighted their own recommendations and opinions equally. The result is an amalgam of national scientific opinion representing the views of key researchers in relevant disciplines and of SERI staff members. The Scientific disciplines included in the report are: chemistry, biology, materials sciences, engineering and mathematics, and the social and behavioral sciences. Each discipline is subdivided into two to five topical areas and, wintin each topical area, research needs are described and ranked according to the priorities suggested in the survey. Three categories of priority were established: Crucial, important, and needed. A narrative accompanying the descripton of research needs in each topical area discusses the importance of research in the area for solar energy development and presents the bases for the priority rankings recommended.

Sustainable urbandevelopment requires the integration of environmental interests in urban planning. Although various methods of environmental assessment have been developed, plan outcomes are often disappointing due to the complex nature of decision-making in urban planning, which takes place in multiple arenas within multiple policy networks involving diverse stakeholders. We argue that the concept of âdecision windowsâ can structure this seemingly chaotic chain of interrelated decisions. First, explicitly considering the dynamics of the decision-making process, we further conceptualized decision windows as moments in an intricate web of substantively connected deliberative processes where issues are reframed within a decision-making arena, and interests may be linked within and across arenas. Adopting this perspective in two case studies, we then explored how decision windows arise, which factors determine their effectiveness and how their occurrence can be influenced so as to arrive at more sustainable solutions. We conclude that the integration of environmental interests in urban planning is highly dependent on the ability of the professionals involved to recognize and manipulate decision windows. Finally, we explore how decision windows may be opened. -- Highlights: â¢ Decision-making about sustainable urbandevelopment occurs in networks. â¢ The concept of âdecision windowsâ was further elaborated. â¢ Decision windows help understand how environmental interests enter decision-making. â¢ Decision windows can, to some extent, be influenced.

WPA works with 33 State Wind Working Groups to educate stakeholders on wind energy topics and to achieve the basics needed for effective wind development in a state. WPA has accelerated outreach and communication efforts with 13 priority states: Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Maryland, Massachussetts, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, South Dakota, Utah, and Virginia. These states have the potential to contribute substantially to the national portfolio of wind energy but do not yet have large amounts of wind energy applications on the ground. This is often due to barriers in in-state knowledge and understanding of wind energy issues and potential that impact the policy environment and the market environment. There are common regional issues among the states, and important learning opportunities can be gained by cross-training and sharing experiences. The Regional Wind Energy Institutes (RWEIs) are train-the-trainer organizations that work to develop a cadre of in-state outreach specialists who reach out to audiences of decisionmakers (e.g., the ag community, state and local officials, utilities, regulatory bodies) to build understanding, create public acceptance, take advantage of regional synergies, and eventually to impact polices and the market environment for effective wind implementation.

The urban climate is changing rapidly. Therefore, climate change and its projected impacts on environmental conditions must be considered in assessing and comparing urban planning alternatives. In this paper, we present an integrated framework for urban climate adaptation tool (Urban-CAT) that will help cities to plan for, rather than react to, possible risks. Urban-CAT will be developed as a scenario planning tool that is locally relevant to existing urban decision-making processes.

Lab completes priority erosion controls LANL completes high-priority flood and erosion control work Crews installed 600 feet of water diversion barriers and removed more than 1,200 cubic yards of sediment in anticipation of flash flooding. July 11, 2011 Los Alamos National Laboratory sits on top of a once-remote mesa in northern New Mexico with the Jemez mountains as a backdrop to research and innovation covering multi-disciplines from bioscience, sustainable energy sources, to plasma physics

2012 Synthesized HAB Budget Advice Priorities Synthesized by EnviroIssues from 2008-2012 HAB Budget Advice 1 Overarching Budget Advice Commentary (lettered for ease of reference, not indicative of priority) Compliance Budget A. DOE field and Headquarters future budget planning and budget requests should be based on full compliance with regulatory and Consent Order requirements. B. All funding required to meet the TPA and regulatory requirements should be within the target budget, and requested

The Urban Consortium Energy Task Force (UCETF), comprised of representatives of large cities and counties in the United States, is a subgroup of the Urban Consortium, an organization of the nation's largest cities and counties joined together to identify, develop and deploy innovative approaches and technological solutions to pressing urban issues.

Rainfall runoff becomes contaminated as it passes over urban land. Billions of gallons of water can be recovered for beneficial uses if urban stormwater is properly controlled and treated. The Storm and Combined Sewer Program of the United States Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development has continuously supported the development and demonstration of stormwater control systems and treatment processes. Water quality of the treated storm runoff can meet the required standards for subpotable usage. Current urban stormwater control and treatment technology are discussed, leading to the feasibility of urban stormwater reuse for various purposes in industry, irrigation and recreation. A hypothetical case study illustrating the cost effectiveness of reclaiming urban stormwater for complete industrial supply is presented.

This new manual of practice, jointly produced by the Water Environment Federation and American Society of Civil Engineers, focuses on the protection and enhancement of urban water resources by controlling the transport of constituents into urban waterways by urban stormwater runoff. The manual emphasizes control of constituent discharges, reflecting the fact that chemical and particulate constituents in urban stormwater runoff play a key role in determining the negative effects of that runoff.

Urban Research Scientist Chris.Urban@nrel.gov | 303-384-7917 Research Interests Chris Urban's experience includes directed organic synthesis for the Liquid Crystal Materials Research Center at University of Colorado - Boulder, as well as liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis for the pharmaceutical industry. Education B.A., Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Colorado - Boulder, 2007

There has been a substantial decline in both exploratory drilling and seismic field crew activity in the United States over the last 10 years, due primarily to the declining price of oil. To reverse this trend and to preserve the entrepreneurial independent operator, the U.S. DOE is attempting to encourage hydrocarbon exploration activities in some of the under exploited regions of the United States. This goal is being accomplished by conducting broad regional reviews of potentially prospective areas within the lower 48 states. Data are being collected on selected areas, and studies are being done on a regional scale generally unavailable to the smaller independent. The results of this work will be made available to the public to encourage the undertaking of operations in areas which have been overlooked until this project. Fifteen criteria have been developed for the selection of study areas. Eight regions have been identified where regional geologic analysis will be performed. This report discusses preliminary findings concerning the geology, early tectonic history, structure and potential unconventional source rocks for the Black Mesa basin and South Central states region, the two highest priority study areas.

At a workshop held in Denver, Colorado, on June 20 to 23, 1979, Process and Systems Dynamics and Control (PSDC) is concerned with the development and control of system behavior, performance criteria, and theories of control and optimization. This report presents a set of high-priority basic engineering research needs in the PSDC field which are important to the development of future energy technologies. The ten high priority generic research areas were aggregeted into four major research needs recommended for DOE support: on-line optimization and control, systems methodology, measurement methodology and instrumentation, and modeling.

Most urban areas are experiencing substantial growth rate. In order to support the growth and still maintain the high quality of life currently available in these areas, government planners, and developers and general stakeholders are very interested in a product that will allow them to experiment with different development scenarios to determine the best path forward. One of the biggest concerns is the amount of water that will be available as the growth continues. ThismoreÂ Â» software package will allow them as a group to input their ideas and get a visual view of the results, immediately. They will be able to watch the water resources as they are consumed by the increasing growth in residential, commercial and industrial areas.Â«Â less

The basic features of the Priority Service approach for unbundling the equality attributes of electric power service is described. This paper pointed out how this unbundling of service provides an effective tool for managing the risks faced by electric utilities in the next decade. It is also interesting to compare the features of Priority Service to those that result from deregulation of supply in other industries. In the transportation and communications industries, a primary result of deregulation has been a substantial increase in product differentiation and the tailoring of products to specific customer needs. Thus Priority Service, as a means of product differentiation, offers an opportunity to capture some of the benefits of deregulation without the associated uncertainties and instabilities that are often introduced by deregulating markets. 2 figures, 5 tables.

This report identifies research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) needs and priorities associated with municipal solid waste (MSW) management technologies that conserve or produce energy or resources. The changing character of MSW waste management and the public`s heightened awareness of its real and perceived benefits and costs creates opportunities for RD&D in MSW technologies. Increased recycling, for example, creates new opportunities for energy, chemicals, and materials recovery. New technologies to control and monitor emissions from MSW combustion facilities are available for further improvement or application. Furthermore, emerging waste-to-energy technologies may offer environmental, economic, and other advantages. Given these developments, DOE identified a need to assess the RD&D needs and pdodties and carefully target RD&D efforts to help solve the carbon`s waste management problem and further the National Energy Strategy. This report presents such an assessment. It identifies and Documents RD&D needs and priorities in the broad area of MSW resource . recovery, focusing on efforts to make MSW management technologies commercially viable or to improve their commercial deployment over a 5 to l0 year period. Panels of technical experts identifies 279 RD&D needs in 12 technology areas, ranking about one-fifth of these needs as priorities. A ``Peer Review Group`` identified mass-burn combustion, ``systems studies,`` landfill gas, and ash utilization and disposal as high priority areas for RD&D based on cost and the impacts of further RD&D. The results of this assessment are intended to provide guidance to DOE concerning possible future RD&D projects.

Interfacing subsea equipment with remotely operated vehicles (ROV's) and the further development of arctic-class units are the primary challenges facing manufacturers. Worldwide use of the ROV for drilling support has exploded during this decade as oil companies continue their search in deeper waters. If the unmanned vehicles are to become an even more integral tool of the oilman, experts say they must be able to perform more complex tasks. The evolution of more multi-purpose ROVs, however, hinges on the redesigning of subsea equipment. The severe limitations on subsea support (by ROVs) is the obsolete design associated with the subsea equipment itself. These limitations are discussed.

From May through August, 1993, the M-2 Group within M Division at LANL conducted with the support of the LANL Integration and Coordination Office (ICO) and Applied Decision Analysis, Inc. (ADA), whose purpose was to develop a system for setting priorities among activities. This phase of the project concentrated on prioritizing near-tenn activities (i.e., activities that must be conducted in the next six months) necessary for setting up this new group. Potential future project phases will concentrate on developing a tool for setting priorities and developing annual budgets for the group`s operations. The priority screening system designed to address the near-term problem was developed, applied in a series of meeting with the group managers, and used as an aid in the assignment of tasks to group members. The model was intended and used as a practical tool for documenting and explaining decisions about near-term priorities, and not as a substitute for M-2 management judgment and decision-making processes.

Urbanization is reshaping China's economy, society, and energy system. Between 1990 and 2008 China added more than 300 million new urban residents, bringing the total urbanization rate to 46%. The ongoing population shift is spurring energy demand for new construction, as well as additional residential use with the replacement of rural biomass by urban commercial energy services. This project developed a modeling tool to quantify the full energy consequences of a particular form of urban residential development in order to identify energy- and carbon-efficient modes of neighborhood-level development and help mitigate resource and environmental implications of swelling cities. LBNL developed an integrated modeling tool that combines process-based lifecycle assessment with agent-based building operational energy use, personal transport, and consumption modeling. The lifecycle assessment approach was used to quantify energy and carbon emissions embodied in building materials production, construction, maintenance, and demolition. To provide more comprehensive analysis, LBNL developed an agent-based model as described below. The model was applied to LuJing, a residential development in Jinan, Shandong Province, to provide a case study and model proof of concept. This study produced results data that are unique by virtue of their scale, scope and type. Whereas most existing literature focuses on building-, city-, or national-level analysis, this study covers multi-building neighborhood-scale development. Likewise, while most existing studies focus exclusively on building operational energy use, this study also includes embodied energy related to personal consumption and buildings. Within the boundaries of this analysis, food is the single largest category of the building energy footprint, accounting for 23% of the total. On a policy level, the LCA approach can be useful for quantifying the energy and environmental benefits of longer average building lifespans. In

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago are developing tools that merge urban design with scientific analysis to improve the decision-making process associated with large-scale urbandevelopments. One such tool, called LakeSim, has been prototyped with an initial focus on consumer-driven energy and transportation demand, through a partnership with the Chicago-based architectural and engineering design firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Clean Energy Trust and developer McCaffery Interests. LakeSim began with the need to answer practical questions about urban design and planning, requiring a better understanding about the long-term impact of design decisions on energy and transportation demand for a 600-acre development project on Chicago's South Side - the Chicago Lakeside Development project.

Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago are developing tools that merge urban design with scientific analysis to improve the decision-making process associated with large-scale urbandevelopments. One such tool, called LakeSim, has been prototyped with an initial focus on consumer-driven energy and transportation demand, through a partnership with the Chicago-based architectural and engineering design firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, Clean Energy Trust and developer McCaffery Interests. LakeSim began with the need to answer practical questions about urban design and planning, requiring a better understanding about the long-term impact of design decisions on energy and transportation demand for a 600-acre development project on Chicago's South Side - the Chicago Lakeside Development project.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has consistently recognized that cold regions pose unique environmental problems. This report sets forth the conceptual framework and research plans for several high priority research areas. It provides the fundamental basis for implementation of the EPA Cold-Climate Environmental Research Program. This three- to five-year program encompasses both short- and long-term research of high relevance to the EPA and to the cold regions that it serves.

Development of forestry mitigation strategy under Russian transition economy conditions has many difficulties and specific features. The most important factors are: shortage in funds; absence of well defined legislation, rules and standards; absence of adequate control systems; weak transport infrastructure and export problems. Assessment of economic possibilities, potential, short- and middle-term measures show that strategies have to be focused on improvement and promotion of current carbon sequestration activity. Five baseline forestry scenario (No. 1) and four other scenarios (No. 2 - No. 5) for 2000-2040 were developed. Each scenario covers all forested area but provides separate analysis of 30 `forestry ecoregions`. Three types of forestry management were included in scenarios: clear-cut logging and reforestation (by scenarios No. 2 and No. 3); selective logging and thinning (No. 4); measures to prevent and manage fires (No. 5). The baseline scenario results in a constant net-sink of about 150 MtC/yr. An increase in clear-cut logging on the basis of current forestry practice will cause a rapid drop of net-sink. Implementation of a modest increase in clear-cut logging with active forest fire and selective logging measures could provide with a slight increase of net-sink. Consideration of scenarios helps identify regional forestry priorities for Russian Climate Change Action Plan. The priorities by region include: European-Ural: (1) creation of economy mechanism to increase forestry effectiveness on the same cutting areas, (2) assistance to natural reforestation. Central and North-East Siberia: promotion of forest fire protection system. South Siberia and Primorie and Priamurie: limit of clear-cut logging and creation market situation for better forestry efficiency. The proposed Joint Implementation Vologda reforestation project which is being considered now by special bodies of the USA and the Russian Federation is in good agreement with these priorities.

3 "FY'2015 Budget Priorities" 2013-03 "FY'2015 Budget Priorities" It is the intent of the NNMCAB to utilize the opportunity DOE/EM has given to the stakeholders, to have input and participate into formulating budget requests and work priorities. Rec 2013-03 - May 8, 2013 (29.

1 "FY 2016 Budget Priorities" 2014-01 "FY 2016 Budget Priorities" It is the intent of the NNMCAB to utilize the opportunity DOE/EM has given to the stakeholders, to have input and participate in formulating budget requests and work priorities. Rec 2014-01 - April 9, 2014 (260.29

This is a supplement to the report entitled Environmental Cleanup: Too Many High Priority Sites Impede DOD`s Program. It provides six installation case studies addressing issues including the status of the restoration program, the cost of cleanup to date and projected costs, the cleanup options considered, the option selected, expected completion, and the applicable cleanup standards. The case studies also provide installation specific information on reasons installation was listed on the NPL, the regulatory process, cooperation between the installation and the regulatory agencies, staffing at the installations and the regulatory agencies, and the process for funding the cleanup.

The American literature of the past 30 years on fire and blast effects of nuclear weapons on urban areas has been surveyed. The relevant work is briefly sketched and areas where information is apparently lacking are noted. This report is intended to provide the basis for suggesting research priorities in the fire and blast effects area for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. It is also intended to provide entry into the literature for researchers. over 850 references are given.

Department of Energy Urban Electric Power Takes Energy Storage from Startup to Grid-Scale Urban Electric Power Takes Energy Storage from Startup to Grid-Scale June 25, 2013 - 12:42pm Addthis Learn how the CUNY Energy Institute is creating safe, low cost, rechargeable, long lifecycle batteries that could be used to store renewable energy. | Video courtesy of the Energy Department. Alexa McClanahan Communications Support Contractor to ARPA-E What are the key facts? The CUNY Energy Institute

In this paper, we propose swarm intelligence algorithms to deal with dynamical and spatial organization emergence. The goal is to model and simulate the developement of spatial centers using multi-criteria. We combine a decentralized approach based on emergent clustering mixed with spatial constraints or attractions. We propose an extension of the ant nest building algorithm with multi-center and adaptive process. Typically, this model is suitable to analyse and simulate urban dynamics like gentrification or the dynamics of the cultural equipment in urban area.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation (NFWF) is accepting applications for up to $2.1 million to develop community capacity to sustain local natural resources for future generations by providing modest financial assistance to diverse local partnership for wetland, riparian, forest and coastal habitat restoration, urban wildlife conservation, stormwater management as well as outreach, education and stewardship.

The author discusses the need for improvements to the environment in urban areas, and efforts being made under the direction of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address these problems. The impact the new Clean Air Act can have on emissions from gasoline powered autos, diesel burning trucks, fixed emission sources ranging from utilities to chemical plants, and consumer products like hair sprays and charcoal starters, will all work together to improve air quality in urban areas. The author also discusses Brownfields Economic Redevelopment Plan efforts being supported by the EPA in a coordinated plan to get municipalities involved in cleaning up areas with pollution, to remove the blight on the urban areas, provide new land for development, and promote additional jobs.

Sustainable development or sustainability has been highlighted as an essential principle in urban master planning, with increasing recognition that uncontrollable urbanization may well give rise to various issues such as overexploitation of natural resources, ecosystem destruction, environmental pollution and large-scale climate change. Thus, it is deemed necessary to modify the existing urban and regional administrative system so as to cope with the challenges urban planning is being confronted with and realize the purpose of urban sustainability. This paper contributed to proposing a mechanism which helps to make urban planning with full consideration of issues with respect to sustainable development. We suggested that the integration of urban planning, SEA and ecological planning be a multi-win strategy to offset deficiency of each mentioned political tool being individually applied. We also proposed a framework where SEA and ecological planning are fully incorporated into urban planning, which forms a two-way constraint mechanism to ascertain environmental quality of urban planning, although in practice, planning and SEA processes may conditionally be unified. Moreover, as shown in the case study, the integration of the three political tools may be constrained due to slow changes in the contextual factors, in particular the political and cultural dimensions. Currently within the context of China, there may be three major elements which facilitate integration of the three political tools, which are (1) regulatory requirement of PEIA on urban planning, (2) the promotion or strong administrative support from government on eco-district building, and (3) the willingness of urban planners to collaborate with SEA experts or ecologists.

Office of Science (SC) Office of Science Priority Research Areas for SCGSR Program DOE Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) Program SCGSR Home Eligibility Benefits Participant Obligations How to Apply Identifying a Collaborating DOE Laboratory Scientist Research Proposal Guidelines Office of Science Priority Research Areas for SCGSR Program About the Office of Science Office of Science User Facilities Priority Areas For Past SCGSR Solicitations Letters of Support Graduate

Urbanization, one of the major human induced land-cover and land-use changes, has a profound impact on the Earth system including biodiversity, the cycling of water and carbon and exchange of energy and water between Earthâs surface and atmosphere, all affecting weather and climate. Accurate information on urban areas and their spatial distribution at the regional and global scales is important for scientific understanding of their contribution to the changing Earth system, and for practical management and policy decisions. We developed a method to map the urban extent from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) nighttime stable-light data at the global level and derived a new global map of 1-km urban extent for year 2000. Based on this map, we found that globally, urban land area is about 0.5% of total land area but ranges widely at regional level from 0.1% in Oceania to 2.3% in Europe. At the country level, urban land area varies from lower than 0.01% to higher than 10%, but is lower than 1% for most (70%) countries. Urbanization follows land mass distribution, as anticipated, with the highest concentration found between 30Â°N to 45Â°N latitude and the largest longitudinal peak around 80Â°W. Based on a sensitivity analysis and comparison with other global urban area products, we found that our global product of urban area provides a reliable estimate of global urban areas and offer the potential of capturing more accurately their spatial and temporal dynamics.

Urbanization, one of the major human induced land-cover and land-use changes, has a profound impact on the Earth system including biodiversity, the cycling of water and carbon and exchange of energy and water between Earthâs surface and atmosphere, all affecting weather and climate. Accurate information on urban areas and their spatial distribution at the regional and global scales is important for scientific understanding of their contribution to the changing Earth system, and for practical management and policy decisions. We developed a method to map the urban extent from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) nighttime stable-light data atmoreÂ Â» the global level and derived a new global map of 1-km urban extent for year 2000. Based on this map, we found that globally, urban land area is about 0.5% of total land area but ranges widely at regional level from 0.1% in Oceania to 2.3% in Europe. At the country level, urban land area varies from lower than 0.01% to higher than 10%, but is lower than 1% for most (70%) countries. Urbanization follows land mass distribution, as anticipated, with the highest concentration found between 30Â°N to 45Â°N latitude and the largest longitudinal peak around 80Â°W. Based on a sensitivity analysis and comparison with other global urban area products, we found that our global product of urban area provides a reliable estimate of global urban areas and offer the potential of capturing more accurately their spatial and temporal dynamics.Â«Â less

Reliable and safe urban system conditions have to be a crucial goal of ordinary planning activities. Among planning goals, priority must be given to indications relating to the safety levels to be achieved and to the amount of resources to be directed towards reducing the vulnerability of urban systems and therefore of the measures to be taken. Uban vulnerability cannot in fact be reduced to the sum of the vulnerability of single buildings or to the physical vulnerability of its various components. This research work consists of identifying those urban sub-areas that are important for safety in relation to natural risks, ambits that should be highlighted by means of permanent emergency notice boards/billboards. What are the hazard notices relating to all natural hazards and related risks? Where are they located? Are they clear and straightforward so that all residents and visitors are able to understand them, as it is already the case for road signs (or at least it should be)? What urban sub-areas are worth highlighting in relation to natural risks, acting for example as escape routes or meeting points? How is information for the public managed in order that people are immediately, easily and regularly notified? What is the relation of such signals to ordinary traffic signals? Research into the state of the art of permanent notice boards/billboards of this type, currently distinguished only by sporadic and local initiatives, aims at carrying out a census of and recognizing urban elements already considered as important for reducing the vulnerability of the urban system to different natural calamities and at providing new highlights as regards the identification of new ones. The next step is to work out a decision and common-language strategy for planning these elements and for their adequate signposting, so as to be able to live in the urban environment with awareness, safety and confidence, including with respect to more remote and therefore often neglected

The United States Support Program (USSP) priority for containment and surveillance (US) focuses on maintaining or improving the reliability and cost-effectiveness of C/S systems for IAEA safeguards, expanding the number of systems that are unattended and remotely monitored, and developing verification methods that help streamline the on-site inspection process. Existing IAEA C/S systems have evolved to become complex, integrated systems, which may include active seals, nondestructive assay (NDA) instruments, video cameras, and other sensors. These systems operate autonomously. They send analytical data to IAEA headquarters where it can be reviewed. These systems present challenges to the goals of improved system performance, standardization, reliability, maintainability, documentation, and cost effectiveness. One critical lesson from past experiences is the need for cooperation and common objectives among the IAEA, the developer, and the facility operator, to create a successful, cost effective system. Recent USSP C/S activities include Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant safeguard systems, production of a new shift register, numerous vulnerability assessments of C/S systems, a conduit monitoring system which identifies tampering of IAEA conduit deployed in the field, fiber optic seal upgrades, unattended monitoring system software upgrades, next generation surveillance system which will upgrade existing camera systems, and support of the IAEA's development of the universal nondestructive assay data acquisition platform.

Future Budgets at LANL" | Department of Energy 6 "Budget Priorities for FY'12 and Baseline Change Proposal with Future Budgets at LANL" 2010-06 "Budget Priorities for FY'12 and Baseline Change Proposal with Future Budgets at LANL" The intent of this recommendation is to provide LASO with the priorities, which the NNMCAB believes are important to the citizens of Northern New Mexico in the large program to clean up the legacy waste at LANL. Rec 2010-06 - March 31, 2010

9 "DOE/LANL Funding Priorities" 2008-09 "DOE/LANL Funding Priorities" The intent of this recommendation is to get DOE to request the funding at the full level provided in the 2006 Certified EM Baseline necessary to assure Consent Order deliverables will be met by 2015 deadline. Rec 2008-09 - September 24, 2008 (20.46

This report describes the findings of the effort initiated by the Arab Science and Technology Foundation and the Cooperative Monitoring Center at Sandia National Laboratories to identify, contact, and engage members of the Iraqi science and technology (S&T) community. The initiative is divided into three phases. The first phase, the survey of the Iraqi scientific community, shed light on the most significant current needs in the fields of science and technology in Iraq. Findings from the first phase will lay the groundwork for the second phase that includes the organization of a workshop to bring international support for the initiative, and simultaneously decides on an implementation mechanism. Phase three involves the execution of outcomes of the report as established in the workshop. During Phase 1 the survey team conducted a series of trips to Iraq during which they had contact with nearly 200 scientists from all sections of the country, representing all major Iraqi S&T specialties. As a result of these contacts, the survey team obtained over 450 project ideas from Iraqi researchers. These projects were revised and analyzed to identify priorities and crucial needs. After refinement, the result is approximately 170 project ideas that have been categorized according to their suitability for (1) developing joint research projects with international partners, (2) engaging Iraqi scientists in solving local problems, and (3) developing new business opportunities. They have also been ranked as to high, medium, or low priority.

In this presentation the author addresses four main objectives. They are to: discuss programs that are driving the introduction of alternative fuels into fleet operations in urban areas around the country; define alternative fuels; quantify the present use and future projections on alternative fuel vehicles (AVFs) in the Chicago metropolitan statistical area; and discuss benefits of increased use of alternative fuels in urban areas. Factors which touch on these points include: present domestic dependence on petroleum for autos, with usage exceeding production; the large populations in urban areas which do not meet Clean Air Standards; recent legislative initiatives which give guidance and aid in the adoption of such strategies.

Air motions in and around cities are highly complex, and the increasing threat of harmful releases into urban atmospheres makes advancing the state-of-science of understanding and modeling atmospheric flows and dispersion in and around cities essential. The four-year Urban Dispersion Program (UDP) funded primarily by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency has recently been completed. The programâs primary focus was to conduct tracer and meteorological field studies in Manhattan to improve our understanding of flow and dispersion of airborne contaminants through and around the deep street canyons of New York City, including outdoor-indoor-subway exchange mechanisms. Additionally, urban dispersion models are being validated and first-responder guidance are being refined using data collected during the two UDP field studies. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory led several government laboratories, universities and private companies in conducting the two UDP field studies. The first study was a small-scale study that investigated dispersion in the immediate vicinity of the Madison Square Garden during March 2005 (MSG05), while the second UDP study was an extensive study conducted during August 2005 in Midtown Manhattan (MID05). A brief overview of the UDP field studies will be given followed by a discussion of some limitations of current urban models in simulating dispersion in urban areas. Some first-responder guidance based on findings from recent urban field studies will also be presented.

A macro environmental risk assessment (ERA) methodology was developed for the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) as part of the US Agency for International Development Industrial Environmental Management Project. The DENR allocates its limited resources to mitigate those environmental problems that pose the greatest threat to human health and the environment. The National Regional Industry Prioritization Strategy (NRIPS) methodology was developed as a risk assessment tool to establish a national ranking of industrial facilities. The ranking establishes regional and national priorities, based on risk factors, that DENR can use to determine the most effective allocation of its limited resources. NRIPS is a systematic framework that examines the potential risk to human health and the environment from hazardous substances released from a facility, and, in doing so, generates a relative numerical score that represents that risk. More than 3,300 facilities throughout the Philippines were evaluated successfully with the NRIPS.

The Economic Regulatory Administration developed this statement as part of a comprehensive programmatic review of alternatives to existing federal policy on curtailment of natural gas deliveries during periods of shortage.

Accurate information of urban areas at regional and global scales is important for both the science and policy-making communities. The Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) nighttime stable light data (NTL) provide a potential way to map urban area and its dynamics economically and timely. In this study, we developed a cluster-based method to estimate the optimal thresholds and map urban extents from the DMSP/OLS NTL data in five major steps, including data preprocessing, urban cluster segmentation, logistic model development, threshold estimation, and urban extent delineation. Different from previous fixed threshold method with over- and under-estimation issues, in our method the optimal thresholds are estimated based on cluster size and overall nightlight magnitude in the cluster, and they vary with clusters. Two large countries of United States and China with different urbanization patterns were selected to map urban extents using the proposed method. The result indicates that the urbanized area occupies about 2% of total land area in the US ranging from lower than 0.5% to higher than 10% at the state level, and less than 1% in China, ranging from lower than 0.1% to about 5% at the province level with some municipalities as high as 10%. The derived thresholds and urban extents were evaluated using high-resolution land cover data at the cluster and regional levels. It was found that our method can map urban area in both countries efficiently and accurately. Compared to previous threshold techniques, our method reduces the over- and under-estimation issues, when mapping urban extent over a large area. More important, our method shows its potential to map global urban extents and temporal dynamics using the DMSP/OLS NTL data in a timely, cost-effective way.

The Clean Air Now (CAN) Solar Hydrogen Project, located at Xerox Corp., El Segundo, California, includes solar photovoltaic powered hydrogen generation, compression, storage and end use. Three modified Ford Ranger trucks use the hydrogen fuel. The stand-alone electrolyzer and hydrogen dispensing system are solely powered by a photovoltaic array. A variable frequency DC-AC converter steps up the voltage to drive the 15 horsepower compressor motor. On site storage is available for up to 14,000 standard cubic feet (SCF) of solar hydrogen, and up to 80,000 SCF of commercial hydrogen. The project is 3 miles from Los Angeles International airport. The engine conversions are bored to 2.9 liter displacement and are supercharged. Performance is similar to that of the Ranger gasoline powered truck. Fuel is stored in carbon composite tanks (just behind the driver`s cab) at pressures up to 3600 psi. Truck range is 144 miles, given 3600 psi of hydrogen. The engine operates in lean burn mode, with nil CO and HC emissions. NO{sub x} emissions vary with load and rpm in the range from 10 to 100 ppm, yielding total emissions at a small fraction of the ULEV standard. Two trucks have been converted for the Xerox fleet, and one for the City of West Hollywood. A public outreach program, done in conjunction with the local public schools and the Department of Energy, introduces the local public to the advantages of hydrogen fuel technologies. The Clean Air Now program demonstrates that hydrogen powered fleet development is an appropriate, safe, and effective strategy for improvement of urban air quality, energy security and avoidance of global warming impact. Continued technology development and cost reduction promises to make such implementation market competitive.

Between 2010 and 2012 the Eastern Interconnection Planning Collaborative (EIPC) conducted a major long-term resource and transmission study of the Eastern Interconnection (EI). With guidance from a Stakeholder Steering Committee (SSC) that included representatives from the Eastern Interconnection States Planning Council (EISPC) among others, the project was conducted in two phases. Phase 1 involved a long-term capacity expansion analysis that involved creation of eight major futures plus 72 sensitivities. Three scenarios were selected for more extensive transmission- focused evaluation in Phase 2. Five power flow analyses, nine production cost model runs (including six sensitivities), and three capital cost estimations were developed during this second phase. The results from Phase 1 and 2 provided a wealth of data that could be examined further to address energy-related questions. A list of 13 topics was developed for further analysis; this paper discusses the first five.

LANL" | Department of Energy 4 "Priorities for ARRA Stimulus Funding for Environmental Clean-up at LANL" 2009-04 "Priorities for ARRA Stimulus Funding for Environmental Clean-up at LANL" The intent of this recommendation is to encourage LASO and the DOE Office of Environmental Management to shoe immediate and beneficial acceleration of the clean-up of legacy waste at LANL and to encourage additional ARRA funding be provided for the use at LANL. Further, the intent of

Department of Energy Residential Program Priorities Update on U.S. Department of Energy Residential Program Priorities These presentations offer information about current Building America program goals and activities, as outlined in the Technical Update meeting on July 24-26, 2013. plenary_werling.pdf (18.83 MB) plenary_rashkin.pdf (10.46 MB) More Documents & Publications Why Are We Here? Building America Technical Update Meeting: What We Know, and What We Don't Know Building America Top

Urban metabolism components define the energy and material exchanges within a city and, therefore, can provide valuable information on the environmental quality of urban areas. Assessing the potential impact of urban planning alternatives on urban metabolism components (such as energy, water, carbon and pollutants fluxes) can provide a quantitative estimation of their sustainability performance. Urban metabolism impact assessment can, therefore, contribute to the identification of sustainable urban structures with regards, for example, to building types, materials and layout, as well as to location and capacity of transportation and infrastructural developments. In this way, it enables the formulation of planning and policy recommendations to promote efficient use of resources and enhance environmental quality in urban areas. The European FP7 project BRIDGE (sustainaBle uRban plannIng Decision support accountinG for urban mEtabolism) has developed a decision-support system (DSS) that systematically integrates urban metabolism components into impact assessment processes with the aim of accurately quantifying the potential effects of proposed planning interventions. The DSS enables integration of multiple spatial and non-spatial datasets (e.g. physical flows of energy and material with variables of social and economic change) in a systematic manner to obtain spatially defined assessment results and to thus inform planners and decision-makers. This multi-criteria approach also enables incorporation of stakeholders' perceptions in order to prioritise decisive assessment criteria. This paper describes the methodological framework used to develop the DSS and critically examines the results of its practical application in five European cities. - Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Urban metabolism in sustainability assessment of planning alternatives. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer European FP7 project applied to 5 real life case studies across Europe. Black

This article explores environmental impacts and risks that can accumulate in rural and ex-urban areas and regions and their relation to urban and global development forces. Two Southern Ontario cases are examined: an area level water disaster and cumulative change at the regional level. The role of disaster incubation analysis and advanced environmental assessment tools are discussed in terms of their potential to contribute to more enlightened and effective assessment and planning processes. It is concluded that conventional approaches to EA and planning are characteristically deficient in addressing the full range of impacts and risks, and particularly those originating from pathogens, dispersed and insidious sources. Rigorous application of disaster incubation analysis and more advanced forms of EA has considerable potential to influence a different pattern of planning and decision making.

The Joint Urban 2003 (JU2003) field study was conducted in Oklahoma City in July 2003 to collect data to increase our knowledge of dispersion in urban areas. Air motions in and around urban areas are very complicated due to the influence of urban structures on both mechanical and thermal forcing. During JU2003, meteorological instruments were deployed at various locations throughout the urban area to characterize the processes that influence dispersion. Some of the instruments were deployed to characterize urban phenomena, such as boundary layer development. In addition, particular sites were chosen for more concentrated measurements to investigate physical processes in more detail. One such site was an urban street canyon on Park Avenue between Broadway and Robinson Avenues in downtown Oklahoma City. The urban canyon study was designed to examine the processes that control dispersion within, into and out of the urban canyon. Several towers were deployed in the Park Avenue block, with multiple levels on each tower for observing the wind using sonic anemometers. Infrared thermometers, net radiometers and ground heat flux plates were deployed on two of the towers midway in the canyon to study the thermodynamic effects and to estimate the surface energy balance. We present results from the surface energy balance observations.

This report describes a research plan to establish environmental, energy, and economic performance measures for renewable building materials, and to identify management and technology alternatives to improve environmental performance in a cost-effective manner. The research plan is designed to: (1) collect environmental and economic data on all life-cycle stages of the materials, (2) ensure that the data follows consistent definitions and collection procedures, and (3) develop analytical procedures for life-cycle analysis to address environmental performance questions. The research will be subdivided into a number of individual project modules. The five processing stages of wood used to organize the research plan are: (1) resource management and harvesting; (2) processing; (3) design and construction of structures; (4) use, maintenance, and disposal; and (5) waste recycling. Individual research module descriptions are provided in the report, as well as assessment techniques, research standards and protocol, and research management. 13 refs., 5 figs., 3 tabs.

The Remedial Action Priority System (RAPS) and the Multimedia Environmental Pollutant Assessment System (MEPAS) were developed to prioritize problems associated with potential releases of hazardous chemical and radioactive materials in a scientific and objective manner based on limited site information. This report documents the model testing efforts of the RAPS/MEPAS methodology for the atmospheric, surface water, groundwater, and exposure components. Comparisons are given of model outputs with measured data at three sites: the US Department of Energy's Mound facility in Ohio and Hanford facility in Washington, and a chromium-cadmium plating site in New York. The results show that the simulated magnitudes, spacial and temporal trends, and distributions of contaminants corresponded well with the measured data. 25 refs., 86 figs., 26 tabs.

The throughput of concurrent priority queues is pivotal to multiprocessor applications such as discrete event simulation, best-first search and task scheduling. Existing lock-free priority queues are mostly based on skiplists, which probabilistically create shortcuts in an ordered list for fast insertion of elements. The use of skiplists eliminates the need of global rebalancing in balanced search trees and ensures logarithmic sequential search time on average, but the worst-case performance is linear with respect to the input size. In this paper, we propose a quiescently consistent lock-free priority queue based on a multi-dimensional list that guarantees worst-case search time of O(logN)moreÂ Â» for key universe of size N. The novel multi-dimensional list (MDList) is composed of nodes that contain multiple links to child nodes arranged by their dimensionality. The insertion operation works by first injectively mapping the scalar key to a high-dimensional vector, then uniquely locating the target position by using the vector as coordinates. Nodes in MDList are ordered by their coordinate prefixes and the ordering property of the data structure is readily maintained during insertion without rebalancing nor randomization. Furthermore, in our experimental evaluation using a micro-benchmark, our priority queue achieves an average of 50% speedup over the state of the art approaches under high concurrency.Â«Â less

The throughput of concurrent priority queues is pivotal to multiprocessor applications such as discrete event simulation, best-first search and task scheduling. Existing lock-free priority queues are mostly based on skiplists, which probabilistically create shortcuts in an ordered list for fast insertion of elements. The use of skiplists eliminates the need of global rebalancing in balanced search trees and ensures logarithmic sequential search time on average, but the worst-case performance is linear with respect to the input size. In this paper, we propose a quiescently consistent lock-free priority queue based on a multi-dimensional list that guarantees worst-case search time of O(logN) for key universe of size N. The novel multi-dimensional list (MDList) is composed of nodes that contain multiple links to child nodes arranged by their dimensionality. The insertion operation works by first injectively mapping the scalar key to a high-dimensional vector, then uniquely locating the target position by using the vector as coordinates. Nodes in MDList are ordered by their coordinate prefixes and the ordering property of the data structure is readily maintained during insertion without rebalancing nor randomization. Furthermore, in our experimental evaluation using a micro-benchmark, our priority queue achieves an average of 50% speedup over the state of the art approaches under high concurrency.

Research is currently underway at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) to advance the basic scientific knowledge of radionuclide-substrate interactions in the urban environment. Investigations have focused on more optimized decontamination agents for cesium (Cs) and americium (Am) specifically for use in mass transit infrastructure and urban environments. This project is designed to enhance the capability of the United States to effectively respond to a Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD) attack. The work addresses recognized data gaps by advancing the basic scientific knowledge of radionuclide-substrate interactions in the urban environment and provides a solution to a national need. The research is focused in four major areas: (1) a better understanding of urban surface conditions that influence the efficacy of decontamination processes, (2) development of prototype decontamination agents for Am and Cs optimized for use in urban environments, (3) the development of capabilities to realistically contaminate surfaces at both the real world and laboratory scale and (4) a validated model for radionuclide-surface interactions. The decontamination of urban surfaces following the detonation of an RDD presents a number of challenges. The following key points are found to be critical for the efficiency of decontamination agents in an urban environment: - Particle size and surface deposition of radionuclide particles on urban surface materials. - Interactions between radionuclides and urban materials. - The presence of grime and carbonation/alteration layers on the surface of urban surfaces. - Post-detonation penetration of radionuclides strongly affected by the dynamic wetting/drying processes. A laboratory scale contamination system has been developed allowing for samples to be contaminated and radionuclide interactions to be studied. In combination with laboratory scale experiments, a real scale outdoor test is scheduled for the spring of 2007. In conclusion

Urbanization results in a landscape with significantly modified surface characteristics. The lower values of reflectivity to solar radiation, surface moisture availability, and vegetative cover, along with the higher values of anthropogenic heat release and surface roughness combine to result higher air temperatures in urban areas relative to their rural counterparts. Through their role in the surface energy balance and surface exchange processes, these surface characteristics are capable of modifying the local meteorology. The impacts on wind speeds, air temperatures, and mixing heights are of particular importance, as they have significant implications in terms of urban energy use and air quality. This research presents several major improvements to the meteorological modeling methodology for highly heterogeneous terrain. A land-use data-base is implemented to provide accurate specification of surface characteristic variability in simulations of the Los Angeles Basin. Several vegetation parameterizations are developed and implemented, and a method for including anthropogenic heat release into the model physics is presented. These modeling advancements are then used in a series of three-dimensional simulations which were developed to investigate the potential meteorological impact of several mitigation strategies. Results indicate that application of moderate tree-planting and urban-lightening programs in Los Angeles may produce summertime air temperature reductions on the order of 4{degree}C with a concomitant reduction in air pollution. The analysis also reveals several mechanisms whereby the application of these mitigation strategies may potentially increase pollutant concentrations. The pollution and energy use consequences are discussed in detail.

High-activity radioactive waste has been stored in large underground storage tanks at the US Department of Energy`s (DOE) Hanford Site in Eastern Washington State since 1944. Since then, more than 227,000 m{sup 3} (60 Mgal) of waste have been accumulated in 177 tanks. These caustic wastes consist of many different chemicals. The waste forms include liquids, slurries, salt cakes, and sludges. A number of safety issues have been raised about these wastes, and resolution of these issues is a top priority of DOE. A Waste Tank Safety Program has been established to resolve these high-priority safety issues. This paper will deal with three of these issues. The issues described are the release of flammable vapors from single- and double-shell tanks, the existence of organic chemicals, and/or ferrocyanide ion-containing fuel-rich mixtures of nitrate and nitrite salts in single-shell tanks.

Article number 16 of the Water Framework Directive (Directive 2000/60/EC) lays down the community strategy for establishment of harmonised quality standards for the priority substances and other substances posing a significant risk to the aquatic environment. In order to achieve the protection objectives of the Directive 2000/60/EC, the Italian Ministry of the Environment proposed the quality standards for surface water, sediments and biota related to the priority substances listed in the decision No. 2455/2001/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of November 20 (2001) [Decision N. 2455/2001/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 November 2001. The list of priority substances in the field of water policy and amending Directive 2000/60/EC. Official Journal of the European Communities, 15.12.2001, p. 5]. Particularly, for the protection of the marine environment, the proposed Italian rules state that, from 1 January 2021, the concentrations of the hazardous priority substances in Italian marine and lagoon waters must be near the natural background for natural substances, like metals, and near zero for the anthropogenic one. According to Directive 2000/60/EC, the Italian Ministry of Environment issued in 2003 Decree 367 in which has derived 160 Environmental Quality Standard (EQS) for water and 27 Environmental Quality Objective (EQO) for sediment of marine coastal area, lagoons and coastal ponds. Biota quality standards have still to be fixed. The paper illustrates the criteria applied for the definition of the quality standards and some comments are presented.

The OE Power Systems Research and Development Program engages a broad group of stakeholders in program planning, identification of high-priority technology gap areas, and joint participation in research, development, demonstration, and deployment activities.

The form and design of cities and towns have a direct impact on the quality of the natural environment, particularly air and water quality. This paper illustrates some of the dynamic relationships between the form of urban environments and air and water pollution. Recent research suggests how urban form affects environmental quality in at least three ways: (a) how suburban development and its dependency on the private motor vehicle increases air pollution, (b) how exterior building materials help to generate urban heat islands and ozone precursors, and (c) how conventional stormwater drainage systems transport polluted urban runoff into waterways. Today`s aging urban infrastructure provides an important and timely opportunity to re-examine the design of cities and towns with a goal of enhancing overall environmental quality. Many miles of roads, freeways, bridges, and stormwater culverts and pipes are in poor condition and need to be repaired or replaced, while many cities are now failing to meet air and water quality standards designed to protect human and environmental health. This paper also explores seven urban planning and design concepts that could reduce the magnitude of air and water pollution in urban environments and help to improve the health of both cities and their residents.

Fine particulate matter collected at two urban, four near-urban, and six remote sites throughout the United States were analyzed for total carbon (TC) and radiocarbon ({sup 14}C). Samples were collected at most sites for both a summer and winter season. The radiocarbon was used to partition the TC into fossil and contemporary fractions. On average, contemporary carbon composed about half of the carbon at the urban, {approx}70-97% at near-urban, and 82-100% at remote sites. At Phoenix, Arizona, and Seattle, Washington, one monitor was located within the urban center and one outside to assess the urban excess over background concentrations. During the summer the urban and rural sites had similar contemporary carbon concentrations. However, during the winter the urban sites had more than twice the contemporary carbon measured at the neighboring sites, indicating anthropogenic contributions to the contemporary carbon. The urban fossil carbon was 4-20 times larger than the neighboring rural sites for both seasons. Organic (OC) and elemental carbon (EC) from TOR analysis were available. These and the radiocarbon data were used to estimate characteristic fossil and contemporary EC/TC ratios for the winter and summer seasons. These ratios were applied to carbon data from the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments network to estimate the fraction of contemporary carbon at mostly rural sites throughout the United States. In addition, the ratios were used to develop a semiquantitative, lower bound estimate of secondary organic carbon (SOC) contribution to fossil and contemporary carbon. SOC accounted for more than one-third of the fossil and contemporary carbon.

The biosolids (BS) generated in the wastewater treatment process of a meat processing plant were monitored and the priority pollutant content was characterized. The trace metal and organic pollutant content - polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins and dibenzofurans (PCDD/PCDF) - were determined quantitatively and compared to guideline limits established by the US EPA and EU. PCBs were not detected in the solid samples, while trace metals, PAHs and PCDD/PCDF were detected in concentrations below the limits established by international standards. Toxic equivalent factors were evaluated for the biosolids, and the results proved that these wastes can be safely deposited on land or used in combustion/incineration plants. Since no previous data were found for meat processing waste, comparisons were made using municipal sewage sludge data reported in the literature. Since, this report monitored part of the priority pollutants established by the US EPA for meat and poultry processing wastewater and sludge, the results verified that low pollution loads are generated by the meat processing plant located in the southern part of Brazil. However, the BS generated in the treatment processes are in accordance with the limits established for waste disposal and even for soil fertilizer.

Understanding how to properly manage urban stormwater is a critical concern to civil and environmental engineers the world over. Mismanagement of stormwater and urban runoff results in flooding, erosion, and water quality problems. In an effort to develop better management techniques, engineers have come to rely on computer simulation and advanced mathematical modeling techniques to help plan and predict water system performance. This important book outlines a new method that uses probability tools to model how stormwater behaves and interacts in a combined- or single-system municipal water system. Complete with sample problems and case studies illustrating how concepts really work, the book presents a cost-effective, easy-to-master approach to analytical modeling of stormwater management systems.

This booklet tells the story of how two very different types of organizations - Bethel New Life and Argonne National Laboratory - have forged a partnership to rebuild West Garfield Park. This unique Partnership blends Bethel`s theological and sociological roots with Argonne`s scientific and technological expertise. Together they hope to offer the community fresh, transferable approaches to solving urban socio-economic and environmental problems. The Partnership hopes to address and solve the inner city`s technological problems through community participation and collaborative demonstrations - without losing sight of the community`s social needs. The key themes throughout this booklet - jobs, sustainable community development, energy efficiency, and environment - highlight challenges the partners face. By bringing people and technologies together, this Partnership will give West Garfield Park residents a better life -- and, perhaps, offer other communities a successful model for urban renewal.

Brooklyn Union Gas Co. has been providing gas to 50% of the population of New York City for the last 100 years. The company has constructed an elaborate gas distribution network that includes a gas main under nearly every city street in a service territory that includes Brooklyn, Staten Island and parts of Queens. Conventional ways of pipeline construction and maintenance are inadequate in today's environment of heightened competition, increased regulations and, most importantly, demanding customer expectations of quality service. As a result, Brooklyn Union Gas must use special construction and maintenance methods in its operations, and in particular trenchless technologies. Over the past 10 years the company has paid close attention to developing a variety of trenchless techniques. Like many gas distribution companies providing service in densely populated urban areas, Brooklyn Union must operate and maintain its gas distribution network in a challenging environment of increasing governmental regulation and escalating field construction costs. Technological innovation is not a luxury, but instead a necessity to achieve corporate growth, regulatory compliance and greater customer satisfaction. Trenchless technologies offset rising pipe installation costs and provide benefits both to the customer and the company. Of special value to Brooklyn Union is the development of systems that renovate old metal pipes by lining. Such techniques are described.

-style development path would avoid 430 million tonnes coal-equivalent energy use by 2025. More than 60% of these energy savings would come from reduced activity and production levels. In carbon terms, this would amount to more than a billion-tonne reduction of energy-related carbon emissions compared with the BAU scenario in 2025, though the absolute level of emissions rises in both scenarios. Aside from the energy and carbon savings related to CLU scenario development, this study showed impending saturation effects in commercial construction, urban appliance ownership, and fertilizer application. The implication of these findings is that urbanization will have a direct impact on future energy use and emissions - policies to guide urban growth can play a central role in China's efforts to mitigate emissions growth.

This paper describes the efficiency of radioactive decontamination activities of the urban landscape in the town of Pripyat, Ukraine. Different methods of treatment for various urban infrastructure and different radioactive contaminants are assessed. Long term changes in the radiation condition of decontaminated urban landscapes are evaluated: 1. Decontamination of the urban system requires the simultaneous application of multiple methods including mechanical, chemical, and biological. 2. If a large area has been contaminated, decontamination of local areas of a temporary nature. Over time, there is a repeated contamination of these sites due to wind transport from neighboring areas. 3. Involvement of earth-moving equipment and removal of top soil by industrial method achieves 20-fold reduction in the level of contamination by radioactive substances, but it leads to large amounts of waste (up to 1500 tons per hectare), and leads to the re-contamination of treated areas due to scatter when loading, transport pollutants on the wheels of vehicles, etc.. (authors)

140 abstracts from the conference cover topics such as urban stormwater management; geographic information systems, hydrologic and hydraulic computer modeling; groundwater analysis and management; drinking water supply and quality; and international water resources issues.

Livelock-free message routing is provided in a network of interconnected nodes that is flushable in time T. An input message processor generates sequences of at least N time intervals, each of duration T. An input register provides for receiving and holding each input message, where the message is assigned a priority state p during an nth one of the N time intervals. At each of the network nodes a message processor reads the assigned priority state and awards priority to messages with priority state (p-1) during an nth time interval and to messages with priority state p during an (n+1) th time interval. The messages that are awarded priority are output on an output path toward the addressed output message processor. Thus, no message remains in the network for a time longer than T.

Livelock-free message routing is provided in a network of interconnected nodes that is flushable in time T. An input message processor generates sequences of at least N time intervals, each of duration T. An input register provides for receiving and holding each input message, where the message is assigned a priority state p during an nth one of the N time intervals. At each of the network nodes a message processor reads the assigned priority state and awards priority to messages with priority state (p-1) during an nth time interval and to messages with priority state p during an (n+1) th time interval. The messages that are awarded priority are output on an output path toward the addressed output message processor. Thus, no message remains in the network for a time longer than T. 4 figures.

Environmental issues resulting from planning new construction in urban areas requires understanding of geological processes at many steps in project development. Steps include: assessments of geological characteristics of the proposed construction site, building design features in light of the geological characteristics, development of the geology component of the EIR as well as any mitigations required, and writing special environmental geological concerns into specifications required of the contractor. The latter step may be exemplified in planning a new underground library being constructed in the center of the Berkeley Campus. The site is within 50 yards of a creek that has been restored such that fish now live in it whereas none could three years ago. Runoff from paved parking lots and walkways around existing buildings goes into storm drains that empty directly into the creek. Because they do, creek water is monitored for chemical and solid wastes as well as turbidity. Based on geological input, special project procedures were written to which the contractor must adhere during site preparation and construction. These include: all liquid wastes must be contained in impermeable containers, all hazardous wastes must be removed under state waste removal guidelines, dewatering procedures were developed to remove groundwater that flows through permeable sands and gravels from the creek bed into the construction site and must be followed, and soil flux into the creek must be prevented. Mitigation of soil flux includes watering areas of the site as soil is excavated. Watering must be monitored because the contractor tends to overwater which flushes soil down nearby storm drains into the creek. As well, soil control monitoring includes preventing the contractor from sweeping soil into the storm drains and flushing it into the creek. Geological input has proven valuable in addressing different environmental concerns.

The Quick Urban & Industrial Complex (QUIC) Dispersion Modeling System has been developed to rapidly compute the transport and dispersion of toxic agent releases in the vicinity of buildings. It is composed of a wind solver, an 'urbanized' Lagrangian random-walk model, and a graphical user interface. QUIC has two different wind models: (a) The QUIC-URB wind solver, an empirically-based diagnostic wind model and (b) The QUIC-CFD (RANS) solver, based on the 3D Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) equations. In this paper, we discuss the effect of different wind models on dispersion patterns in dense built-up areas. The model-computed wind from the two urban wind models- QUIC-URB and QUIC-CFD are used to drive the dispersion model. The concentration fields are then compared to measurements from the Oklahoma City Joint Urban 2003 field experiment. QUIC produces high-resolution 3-D mean wind and concentration fields around buildings, in addition to deposition on the ground and building surfaces. It has options for different release types, including point, moving point, line, area, and volumetric sources, as well as dense gas, explosive buoyant rise, multi-particle size, bioslurry, and two-phase releases. Other features include indoor infiltration, a pressure solver, outer grid simulations, vegetative canopies, and population exposure calculations. It has been used for biological agent sensor siting in cities, vulnerability assessments for heavier-than-air chemical releases at industrial facilities, and clean-up assessments for radiological dispersal device (RDD) releases in cities (e.g., see Linger et al., 2005; Brown, 2006a, b). QUIC has also been used for dust transport studies (Bowker et al., 2007a) and for the impact of highway sound barriers on the transport and dispersion of vehicle emissions (Bowker et al., 2007b).

The Boston Architectural College's Urban Sustainability initiative is a demonstration project as defined by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. BAC's proposed project with the U.S. Department of Energy - NETL, is a large part of that overall initiative. The BAC's Urban Sustainability Initiative is a multi-part project with several important goals and objectives that will have a significant impact on the surrounding neighborhood including: energy conservation, reduction of storm water runoff, generation of power through alternative energy sources, elimination/reduction of BAC carbon footprint, and to create a vehicle for ongoing public outreach and education. Education and outreach opportunities will serve to add to the already comprehensive Sustainability Design courses offered at BAC relative to energy savings, performance and conservation in building design. At the finish of these essential capital projects there will be technical materials created for the education of the design, sustainability, engineering, community development and historic preservation communities, to inform a new generation of environmentally-minded designers and practitioners, the city of Boston and the general public. The purpose of the initiative, through our green renovations program, is to develop our green alley projects and energy saving renovations to the BAC physical plant, to serve as a working model for energy efficient design in enclosed 19th century and 20th century urban sites and as an educational laboratory for teaching ecological and sustainable technologies to students and the public while creating jobs. The scope of our project as it relates to the BAC and the U.S. Department of Energy- NETL combined efforts includes: Task I of the project is Phase II (Green Alley). Task I encompasses various renovation activities that will demonstrate the effectiveness of permeable paving and ground water recharge systems. It will aid in the reduction of storm water runoff into the

Development of an effective strategy for shelter and evacuation is among the most important planning tasks in preparation for response to a low yield, nuclear detonation in an urban area. This study examines shelter-evacuate policies and effectiveness focusing on a 10 kt scenario in Los Angeles. The goal is to provide technical insights that can support development of urban response plans. Results indicate that extended shelter-in-place can offer the most robust protection when high quality shelter exists. Where less effective shelter is available and the fallout radiation intensity level is high, informed evacuation at the appropriate time can substantially reduce the overall dose to personnel. However, uncertainties in the characteristics of the fallout region and in the exit route can make evacuation a risky strategy. Analyses indicate that only a relatively small fraction of the total urban population may experience significant dose reduction benefits from even a well-informed evacuation plan.

Experiments in Alcator C-Mod tokamak plasmas in the Enhanced D-alpha H-mode regime with ITER-like mid-radius plasma density peaking and Ion Cyclotron Resonant heating, in which tungsten is introduced by the laser blow-off technique, have demonstrated that accumulation of tungsten in the central region of the plasma does not take place in these conditions. The measurements obtained are consistent with anomalous transport dominating tungsten transport except in the central region of the plasma where tungsten transport is neoclassical, as previously observed in other devices with dominant neutral beam injection heating, such as JET and ASDEX Upgrade. In contrast to such results, however, the measured scale lengths for plasma temperature and density in the central region of these Alcator C-Mod plasmas, with density profiles relatively flat in the core region due to the lack of core fuelling, are favourable to prevent inter and intra sawtooth tungsten accumulation in this region under dominance of neoclassical transport. Simulations of ITER H-mode plasmas, including both anomalous (modelled by the Gyro-Landau-Fluid code GLF23) and neoclassical transport for main ions and tungsten and with density profiles of similar peaking to those obtained in Alcator C-Mod show that accumulation of tungsten in the central plasma region is also unlikely to occur in stationary ITER H-mode plasmas due to the low fuelling source by the neutral beam injection (injection energyââ¼â1âMeV), which is in good agreement with findings in the Alcator C-Mod experiments.

The control, treatment and management of urban runoff and sewer overflow are reviewed. Simplified modeling and monitoring techniques are used to characterize urban runoff and to assess control alternatives. (KRM)

The continued growth of highway traffic in the United States has led to unwanted urban traffic congestion as well as to noticeable urban air quality problems. These problems include emissions covered by the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) and 1991 Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), as well as carbon dioxide and related {open_quotes}greenhouse gas{close_quotes} emissions. Urban travel also creates a major demand for imported oil. Therefore, for economic as well as environmental reasons, transportation planning agencies at both the state and metropolitan area level are focussing a good deal of attention on urban travel reduction policies. Much discussed policy instruments include those that encourage fewer trip starts, shorter trip distances, shifts to higher-occupancy vehicles or to nonvehicular modes, and shifts in the timing of trips from the more to the less congested periods of the day or week. Some analysts have concluded that in order to bring about sustainable reductions in urban traffic volumes, significant changes will be necessary in the way our households and businesses engage in daily travel. Such changes are likely to involve changes in the ways we organize and use traffic-generating and-attracting land within our urban areas. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the ability of current analytic methods and models to support both the evaluation and possibly the design of such vehicle travel reduction strategies, including those strategies involving the reorganization and use of urban land. The review is organized into three sections. Section 1 describes the nature of the problem we are trying to model, Section 2 reviews the state of the art in operational urban land use-transportation simulation models, and Section 3 provides a critical assessment of such models as useful urban transportation planning tools. A number of areas are identified where further model development or testing is required.

The conference addressed the energy and environmental challenges facing large metropolitan areas. The topics included a comparison of the environmental status of cities twenty years ago with the challenges facing today`s large cities, sustainable economic development, improving the energy and environmental infrastructure, and the changing urban transportation sector. Selected papers are indexed separately for inclusion in the Energy Science and Technology Database.

For effective emergency response and recovery planning, it is critically important that building-resolved urban dispersion models be evaluated using field data. Several full-physics computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models and semi-empirical building-resolved (SEB) models are being advanced and applied to simulating flow and dispersion in urban areas. To obtain an estimate of the current state-of-readiness of these classes of models, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funded a study to compare five CFD models and one SEB model with tracer data from the extensive Midtown Manhattan field study (MID05) conducted during August 2005 as part of the DHS Urban Dispersion Program (UDP; Allwine and Flaherty 2007). Six days of tracer and meteorological experiments were conducted over an approximately 2-km-by-2-km area in Midtown Manhattan just south of Central Park in New York City. A subset of these data was used for model evaluations. The study was conducted such that an evaluation team, independent of the six modeling teams, provided all the input data (e.g., building data, meteorological data and tracer release rates) and run conditions for each of four experimental periods simulated. Tracer concentration data for two of the four experimental periods were provided to the modeling teams for their own evaluation of their respective models to ensure proper setup and operation. Tracer data were not provided for the second two experimental periods to provide for an independent evaluation of the models. The tracer concentrations resulting from the model simulations were provided to the evaluation team in a standard format for consistency in inter-comparing model results. An overview of the model evaluation approach will be given followed by a discussion on the qualitative comparison of the respective models with the field data. Future model developments efforts needed to address modeling gaps identified from this study will also be discussed.

This report is a compilation of information on hydropower research and development (R and D) activities of the Federal government and hydropower industry. The report includes descriptions of on-going and planned R and D activities, 1996 funding, and anticipated future funding. Summary information on R and D projects and funding is classified into eight categories: fish passage, behavior, and response; turbine-related; monitoring tool development; hydrology; water quality; dam safety; operations and maintenance; and water resources management. Several issues in hydropower R and D are briefly discussed: duplication; priorities; coordination; technical/peer review; and technology transfer/commercialization. Project information sheets from contributors are included as an appendix.

Measurements of temperature and position were collected during the night from an instrumented van on routes through Oklahoma City and the rural outskirts. The measurements were taken as part of the Joint URBAN 2003 Tracer Field Experiment conducted in Oklahoma City from June 29, 2003 to July 30, 2003 (Allwine et al., 2004). The instrumented van was driven over four primary routes that included legs from the downtown core to four different 'rural' areas. Each route went through residential areas and most often went by a line of permanently fixed temperature probes (Allwine et al., 2004) for cross-checking purposes. Each route took from 20 to 40 minutes to complete. Based on seven nights of data, initial analyses indicate that there was a temperature difference of 0.5-6.5 C between the urban core and nearby 'rural' areas. Analyses also suggest that there were significant fine scale temperature differences over distances of tens of meters within the city and in the nearby rural areas. The temperature measurements that were collected are intended to supplement the meteorological measurements taken during the Joint URBAN 2003 Field Experiment, to assess the importance of the urban heat island phenomenon in Oklahoma City, and to test new urban canopy parameterizations that have been developed for regional scale meteorological codes (e.g., Chin et al., 2000; Holt and Shi, 2004). In addition to the ground measurements, skin temperature measurements were also analyzed from remotely sensed images taken from the Earth Observing System's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER). A surface kinetic temperature thermal infrared image captured by the ASTER of the Oklahoma City area on July 21, 2001 was analyzed within ESRI's ArcGIS 8.3 to correlate variations in temperature with land use type. Analysis of this imagery suggests distinct variations in temperature across different land use categories. Through the use of remotely sensed imagery we hope to

Scientific papers on landscape planning underline the importance of maintaining and developing green spaces because of their multiple environmental and social benefits for city residents. However, a general understanding of contemporary humanâenvironment interaction issues in urban green space is still incomplete and lacks orientation for urban planners. This review examines 219 publications to (1) provide an overview of the current state of research on the relationship between humans and urban green space, (2) group the different research approaches by identifying the main research areas, methods, and target groups, and (3) highlight important future prospects in urban green space research. - Highlights: â¢ Reviewed literature on urban green pins down a dearth of comparative studies. â¢ Case studies in Africa and Russia are marginalized â the Europe and US dominate. â¢ Questionnaires are used as major tool followed by GIS and quantitative approaches. â¢ Developing countries should contribute in building an urban green space agenda. â¢ Interdisciplinary, adaptable and pluralistic approaches can satiate a knowledge gap.

Understanding how landscape components affect the urban heat islands is crucial for urban ecological planning and sustainable development. The purpose of this research was to quantify the spatial pattern of land surface temperatures (LSTs) and associated heat fluxes in relation to land-cover types in Beijing, China, using portable infrared thermometers, thermal infrared imagers, and the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer. The spatial differences and the relationships between LSTs and the hierarchical landscape structure were analyzed with in situ observations of surface radiation and heat fluxes. Large LST differences were found among various land-use/land-cover types, urban structures, and building materials. Within the urban area, the mean LST of urban impervious surfaces was about 6â12Â°C higher than that of the urban green space. LSTs of built-up areas were on average 3â6Â°C higher than LSTs of rural areas. The observations for surface radiation and heat fluxes indicated that the differences were caused by different fractions of sensible heat or latent heat flux in net radiation. LSTs decreased with increasing elevation and normalized difference vegetation index. Variations in building materials and urban structure significantly influenced the spatial pattern of LSTs in urban areas. By contrast, elevation and vegetation cover are the major determinants of the LST pattern in rural areas. In summary, to alleviate urban heat island intensity, urban planners and policy makers should pay special attention to the selection of appropriate building materials, the reasonable arrangement of urban structures, and the rational design of landscape components.

Understanding how landscape components affect the urban heat islands is crucial for urban ecological planning and sustainable development. The purpose of this research was to quantify the spatial pattern of land surface temperatures (LSTs) and associated heat fluxes in relation to land-cover types in Beijing, China, using portable infrared thermometers, thermal infrared imagers, and the moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer. The spatial differences and the relationships between LSTs and the hierarchical landscape structure were analyzed with in situ observations of surface radiation and heat fluxes. Large LST differences were found among various land-use/land-cover types, urban structures, and building materials. Within themoreÂ Â» urban area, the mean LST of urban impervious surfaces was about 6â12Â°C higher than that of the urban green space. LSTs of built-up areas were on average 3â6Â°C higher than LSTs of rural areas. The observations for surface radiation and heat fluxes indicated that the differences were caused by different fractions of sensible heat or latent heat flux in net radiation. LSTs decreased with increasing elevation and normalized difference vegetation index. Variations in building materials and urban structure significantly influenced the spatial pattern of LSTs in urban areas. By contrast, elevation and vegetation cover are the major determinants of the LST pattern in rural areas. In summary, to alleviate urban heat island intensity, urban planners and policy makers should pay special attention to the selection of appropriate building materials, the reasonable arrangement of urban structures, and the rational design of landscape components.Â«Â less

Australia is a large, sparsely populated country with an economy based traditionally on raw materials exports. Though still a major international trader in minerals and agricultural products, Australia has suffered a decline in productivity, employment, exports, and economic growth since the 1950s. Most energy research and development (R and D) and policymaking activities are carried out under the National Energy Research, Development, and Demonstration (NERDD) program. The NERDD program priorities include, among others, production of liquid hydrocarbon fuels from natural gas or coal-derived synthesis gas and oil and gas exploration, assessment, and recovery technology (high priority); production of liquid fuels from coal and oil shale by hydrogenation or pyrolysis, coal gasification, and achievement of cost reductions in coal and oil shale exploration and assessment techniques (medium priority); and in-situ coal gasification (low priority). Bilateral agreements for energy R and D with other countries are carried out under the Australian Department of National Development and Energy. Australia currently has agreements related to oil, gas, shale, and coal liquids R and D with the UK, the US, Japan, and West Germany.

Through the Urban Integrated Industrial Cogeneration Systems Analysis (UIICSA), the City of Chicago embarked upon an ambitious effort to identify the measure the overall industrial cogeneration market in the city and to evaluate in detail the most promising market opportunities. This report discusses the background of the work completed during Phase II of the UIICSA and presents the results of economic feasibility studies conducted for three potential cogeneration sites in Chicago. Phase II focused on the feasibility of cogeneration at the three most promising sites: the Stockyards and Calumet industrial areas, and the Ford City commercial/industrial complex. Each feasibility case study considered the energy load requirements of the existing facilities at the site and the potential for attracting and serving new growth in the area. Alternative fuels and technologies, and ownership and financing options were also incorporated into the case studies. Finally, site specific considerations such as development incentives, zoning and building code restrictions and environmental requirements were investigated.

The U.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment (HUD) Southwest Office of Native American Programs is conducting this training workshop to assist applicants with the Indian Community Development Block Grant Program.

The validity of omitting stability considerations when simulating transport and dispersion in the urban environment is explored using observations from the Joint URBAN 2003 field experiment and computational fluid dynamics simulations of that experiment. Four releases of sulfur hexafluoride, during two daytime and two nighttime intensive observing periods, are simulated using the building-resolving computational fluid dynamics model, FEM3MP to solve the Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes equations with two options of turbulence parameterizations. One option omits stability effects but has a superior turbulence parameterization using a non-linear eddy viscosity (NEV) approach, while the other considers buoyancy effects with a simple linear eddy viscosity (LEV) approach for turbulence parameterization. Model performance metrics are calculated by comparison with observed winds and tracer data in the downtown area, and with observed winds and turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) profiles at a location immediately downwind of the central business district (CBD) in the area we label as the urban shadow. Model predictions of winds, concentrations, profiles of wind speed, wind direction, and friction velocity are generally consistent with and compare reasonably well with the field observations. Simulations using the NEV turbulence parameterization generally exhibit better agreement with observations. To further explore this assumption of a neutrally-stable atmosphere within the urban area, TKE budget profiles slightly downwind of the urban wake region in the 'urban shadow' are examined. Dissipation and shear production are the largest terms which may be calculated directly. The advection of TKE is calculated as a residual; as would be expected downwind of an urban area, the advection of TKE produced within the urban area is a very large term. Buoyancy effects may be neglected in favor of advection, shear production, and dissipation. For three of the IOPs, buoyancy production may

This paper examines what is known about the relationship between urban spatial structure (i.e. the arrangement of residential, industrial, commercial, recreational and municipal buildings and land lots) and urban travel. The first section provides an overview of the empirical evidence for relationships between urban spatial structure and travel in the United States. Section two focuses on the barriers to and opportunities for reducing the use of automobiles and light trucks in urban areas. The final section offers a policy-point-of-impact perspective on the sort of instruments governments have at their disposal for reducing vehicular travel.

An analysis was made of siting issues in the coastal zone, one of the nation's most critical natural resource areas and one which is often the target for energy development proposals. The analysis addressed the changing perceptions of citizens toward energy development in the coastal zone, emphasizing urban communities where access to the waterfront and revitalization of waterfront property are of interest to the citizen. The findings of this analysis are based on an examination of energy development along New Jersey's urban waterfront and along the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast, and on redevelopment efforts in Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, and elsewhere. The case studies demonstrate the significance of local attitudes and regional cooperation in the siting process. In highly urbanized areas, air quality has become a predominant concern among citizen groups and an influential factor in development of alternative energy facility siting strategies, such as consideration of inland siting connected by pipeline to a smaller coastal facility. The study addresses the economic impact of the permitting process on the desirability of energy facility investments, and the possible effects of the location selected for the facility on the permitting process and investment economics. The economic analysis demonstrates the importance of viewing energy facility investments in a broad perspective that includes the positive or negative impacts of various alternative siting patterns on the permitting process. Conclusions drawn from the studies regarding Federal, state, local, and corporate politics; regulatory, permitting, licensing, environmental assessment, and site selection are summarized. (MCW)

A multi-level (facility and programmatic) risk assessment was conducted for the facilities in the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS) Readiness in Technical Base and Facilities (RTBF) Program and results were included in a new Risk Management Plan (RMP), which was incorporated into the fiscal year (FY) 2010 Integrated Plans. Risks, risk events, probability, consequence(s), and mitigation strategies were identified and captured, for most scope areas (i.e., risk categories) during the facilitated risk workshops. Risk mitigations (i.e., efforts in addition to existing controls) were identified during the facilitated risk workshops when the risk event was identified. Risk mitigation strategies fell into two broad categories: threats or opportunities. Improvement projects were identified and linked to specific risks they mitigate, making the connection of risk reduction through investments for the annual Site Execution Plan. Due to the amount of that was collected, analysis to be performed, and reports to be generated, a Risk Assessment/ Management Tool (RAMtool) database was developed to analyze the risks in real-time, at multiple levels, which reinforced the site-level risk management process and procedures. The RAMtool database was developed and designed to assist in the capturing and analysis of the key elements of risk: probability, consequence, and impact. The RAMtool calculates the facility-level and programmatic-level risk factors to enable a side-by-side comparison to see where the facility manager and program manager should focus their risk reduction efforts and funding. This enables them to make solid decisions on priorities and funding to maximize the risk reduction. A more active risk management process was developed where risks and opportunities are actively managed, monitored, and controlled by each facility more aggressively and frequently. risk owners have the responsibility and accountability to manage their assigned risk in real-time, using the

Three methods of utilizing urban wood waste collected by a tree maintenance firm in Houston, Texas (handling 30,000 ton waste/year) are examined: (a) hauling to a remote landfill; (b) chipping and hauling to a (local) power plant and converting to electricity; and (c) chipping and selling to an outside firm for use as boiler fuel. Breakdown of costs are given for each method in monetary and energy terms. Method (b) was the cheapest, producing a net energy gain (870 million Btu/day), but the firm chose method (c), since it realized a direct monetary return.

The Solar Urban Neighborhood (SUN) project was conceived to demonstrate a widely applicable cooperative procedure for low and moderate income urban residents to conserve energy and promote neighborhood revitalization through installing affordable energy conservation and solar retrofit measures on their homes. The self-help retrofit systems demonstrated fan-assisted air panels for walls and a mansard roof as well as vented Trombe wall and a sunspace. Building upon a strong tradition of cooperation within their neighborhood (security watches, community gardening, bartering of skills for do-it-yourself projects), these Roxbury neighbors were able to use the DOE grant as a catalyst for doing a far more ambitious undertaking. Additionally, the project used elements of a private-public partnership since the project director was also an energy retrofit contractor with specialized equipment and skills to share, wholesale purchase access, etc. Countervailing negative forces which impeded the progress of the project were the very ambitiousness of the solar retrofit itself, the delays in receiving the initial start up grant advance and in overcoming zoning restrictions which required design modifications; and discovery of building defects (dry rot, carpenter ants) within the structures at the time of retrofit. Nevertheless, the SUN project did have a wide impact through formal and informal outreach; through an associated project, SUN-TECH, which promoted solar retrofit awareness and involvement of City of Boston building, energy, and housing officials; and through evolvement of a grass roots level public-private partnership.

Actors in the built environment are progressively considering environmental and social issues alongside functional and economic aspects of development projects. Infrastructure projects represent major investment and construction initiatives with attendant environmental, economic and societal impacts across multiple scales. To date, while sustainability strategies and frameworks have focused on wider national aspirations and strategic objectives, they are noticeably weak in addressing micro-level integrated decision making in the built environment, particularly for infrastructure projects. The proposed approach of this paper is based on the principal that early intervention is the most cost-effective and efficient means of mitigating the environmental effects of development projects, particularly macro infrastructure developments. A strategic overview of the various project alternatives, taking account for stakeholder and expert input, could effectively reduce project impacts/risks at low cost to the project developers but provide significant benefit to wider communities, including communities of future stakeholders. This paper is the first exploratory step in developing a more systematic framework for evaluating strategic alternatives for major metropolitan infrastructure projects, based on key sustainability principles. The developed Strategic Project Appraisal (SPA) framework, grounded in the theory of Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA), provides a means of practically appraising project impacts and alternatives in terms of quantified ecological limits; addresses the neglected topic of metropolitan infrastructure as a means of delivering sustainability outcomes in the urban context and more broadly, seeks to open a debate on the potential for SEA methodology to be more extensively applied to address sustainability challenges in the built environment. Practically applied and timed appropriately, the SPA framework can enable better decision-making and more

and secondly, it also reduces the wastewater load to central facility. In addition, lesser dependency on the distribution network contributes to increased reliability and resiliency of the infrastructure. The goal of this research is to develop a framework which seeks an optimal combination of decentralized water and energy alternatives and centralized infrastructures based on physical and socio-economic environments of a region. Centralized and decentralized options related to water, wastewater and stormwater and distributed energy alternatives including photovoltaic (PV) generators, fuel cells and microturbines are investigated. In the context of the water-energy nexus, water recovery from energy alternatives and energy recovery from water alternatives are reflected. Alternatives recapturing nutrients from wastewater are also considered to conserve depleting resources. The alternatives are evaluated in terms of their life-cycle environmental impact and economic performance using a hybrid life cycle assessment (LCA) tool and cost benefit analysis, respectively. Meeting the increasing demand of a test bed, an optimal combination of the alternatives is designed to minimize environmental and economic impacts including CO2 emissions, human health risk, natural resource use, and construction and operation cost. The framework determines the optimal combination depending on urban density, transmission or conveyance distance or network, geology, climate, etc. Therefore, it will be also able to evaluate infrastructure resiliency against physical and socio-economic challenges such as population growth, severe weather, energy and water shortage, economic crisis, and so on.

What is the effect of urbanization and forest use on hydrologic and geomorphic processes? How can we develop land use policies that minimize adverse impacts on ecosystems while sustaining biodiversity? Land Use and Watersheds: Human Influence on Hydrology and Geomorphology in Urban and Forest Areas addresses these issues and more. By featuring watersheds principally in the American Pacific Northwest, and the effects of timber harvesting and road construction on stream flow, sediment yield and landslide occurrence, scientists can advance their understanding of what constitutes appropriate management of environments with similar hydro-climatic-geomorphic settings worldwide.

Measurements of temperature and position were collected during the night from an instrumented van on routes through Salt Lake City and the rural outskirts. The measurements were taken as part of the Department of Energy Chemical and Biological National Security Program URBAN 2 Field Experiment conducted in October 2000 (Shinn et al., 2000 and Allwine et al., 2001a). The instrumented van was driven over three primary routes, two including downtown, residential, and ''rural'' areas and a third that went by a line of permanently fixed temperature probes (Allwine et al., 2001b) for cross-checking purposes. Each route took from 45 to 60 minutes to complete. Based on four nights of data, initial analyses indicate that there was a temperature difference of 2-5 C between the urban core and nearby ''rural'' areas. Analyses also suggest that there were significant fine scale temperature differences over distances of tens of meters within the city and in the nearby rural areas. The temperature measurements that were collected are intended to supplement the meteorological measurements taken during the URBAN2000 Field Experiment, to assess the importance of the urban heat island phenomenon in Salt Lake City, and to test the urban canopy parameterizations that have been developed for regional scale meteorological codes as part of the DOE CBNP program.

As the world's largest developing country, China currently is undergoing rapid urbanization and motorization, which will result in far-reaching impacts on energy and the environment. According to estimates, energy use and carbon emissions in the transportation sector will comprise roughly 30% of total emissions by 2030. Since the late 1990s, transportation-related issues such as energy, consumption, and carbon emissions have become a policy focus in China. To date, most research and policies have centered on vehicle technologies that promote vehicle efficiency and reduced emissions. Limited research exists on the control of greenhouse gases through mode shifts in urban transportation - in particular, through the promotion of public transit. The purpose of this study is to establish a methodology to analyze carbon emissions from the urban transportation sector at the Chinese city level. By using Jinan, the capital of China's Shandong Province, as an example, we have developed an analytical model to simulate energy consumption and carbon emissions based on the number of trips, the transportation mode split, and the trip distance. This model has enabled us to assess the impacts of the transportation mode split on energy consumption and carbon emissions. Furthermore, this paper reviews a set of methods for data collection, estimation, and processing for situations where statistical data are scarce in China. This paper also describes the simulation of three transportation system development scenarios. The results of this study illustrate that if no policy intervention is implemented for the transportation mode split (the business-as-usual (BAU) case), then emissions from Chinese urban transportation systems will quadruple by 2030. However, a dense, mixed land-use pattern, as well as transportation policies that encourage public transportation, would result in the elimination of 1.93 million tons of carbon emissions - approximately 50% of the BAU scenario emissions.

The Urban Atmospheric Observatory (UAO) First Planning Workshop was held on 27-28 January 2003 at the Environmental Measurements Laboratory (EML) in downtown Manhattan, New York City. The meeting was well attended by local, state, and national administrators, as well as scientists and engineers from the national laboratories and academia. The real-time intensive UAO is a necessary step toward the development and validation of new technologies in support of the New York City emergency management and anti-terrorism effort. The real-time intensive UAO will be a dense array of meteorological instrumentation, remote sensing and satellite products and model output, as well as radiation detection, gamma spectrometer and aerosol measurements focused onto a small area in the heart of Manhattan. Such a test-bed, developed in a somewhat homogeneous urban area, and with a well-developed communication and data collection backbone, will be of immense utility for understanding how models of all scales can be improved and how they can best be integrated into the city's emergency program. The goal of the First Planning Workshop was to bring together a small group of experts in the fields of urban meteorology, modeling from mesoscale to fine-mesh computational fluid dynamics, instrumentation, communications and visualization, in order to (1) establish the importance of the observational program, (2) define the most efficient and cost-effective design for the program, (3) define needed intensive observational efforts and establish a schedule, and (4) define the importance of the UAO in emergency operations. The workshop achieved its goals with the enthusiastic participation of over forty persons. There was a synthesis of ideas towards a world-class facility that would benefit both immediate emergency management activities and, over an extended time, the entire field of urban meteorology and contaminant dispersion modeling.

Transportation Systems Management (TSM) employs various techniques such as road pricing, metering and the priority treatment of high occupancy vehicles (HOVs) in an effort to make more efficient use of existing transportation facilities. Efficiency is improved in terms of moving more people through the facility while simultaneously reducing the number of vehicles using the facility. This report uses a hypothetical toll facility and examines four computer modeling approaches to determine which of the approaches are valid in terms of predicting the behavior of trip makers seeking to use the facility in response to various combinations of TSM techniques. Once an approach has been determined to be valid, seven different combination of TSM techniques, or strategies, are compared to a base strategy to determine what strategy or strategies are most affective in achieving the goals of TSM.

Cities are responsible for the depletion of natural resources and agricultural lands, and 70% of global CO{sub 2} emissions. There are significant risks to cities from the impacts of climate change in addition to existing vulnerabilities, primarily because of rapid urbanization. Urban design and development are generally considered as the instrument to shape the future of the city and they determine the pattern of a city's resource usage and resilience to change, from climate or otherwise. Cities are inherently dynamic and require the participation and engagement of their diverse stakeholders for the effective management of change, which enables wider stakeholder involvement and buy-in at various stages of the development process. Sustainability assessment of urban design and development is increasingly being seen as indispensable for informed decision-making. A sustainability assessment tool also acts as a driver for the uptake of sustainable pathways by recognizing excellence through their rating system and by creating a market demand for sustainable products and processes. This research reviews six widely used sustainability assessment tools for urban design and development: BREEAM Communities, LEED-ND, CASBEE-UD, SBTool{sup PT}âUP, Pearl Community Rating System (PCRS) and GSAS/QSAS, to identify, compare and contrast the aim, structure, assessment methodology, scoring, weighting and suitability for application in different geographical contexts. Strengths and weaknesses of each tool are critically discussed. The study highlights the disparity in local and international contexts for global sustainability assessment tools. Despite their similarities in aim on environmental aspects, differences exist in the relative importance and share of mandatory vs optional indicators in both environmental and social dimensions. PCRS and GSAS/QSAS are new incarnations, but have widely varying shares of mandatory indicators, at 45.4% and 11.36% respectively, compared to 30% in

A four-pronged approach to considering the climate aspects of the CO/sub 2/ issue has been developed. First, a variety of climate models are being improved, particularly in terms of their representation of the oceans, so that their simulation of the regional and temporal response to increasing CO/sub 2/ can be made more realistic. Second, past climatic situations, particularly warm periods, are being studied as possible analogs for the warmer conditions that increased CO/sub 2/ concentrations are expected to induce. Third, the results of model and past climate studies will be combined so that comprehensive scenarios can be assembled for use in assessment studies. Finally, a research program is being developed that will seek early evidence to determine whether the climate is responding to increasing CO/sub 2/. Present results indicate that the climatic change from doubled CO/sub 2/ will be greater than 1.5/sup 0/K, but that identifying evidence of such changes in the next twenty years will be difficult unless past climate variations and their causes are better understood.

In many urban areas, pavements and roofs constitute over 60% of urban surfaces (roof 20-25%, pavements about 40%). The roof and the pavement albedo can be increased by about 0.25 and 0.10, respectively, resulting in a net albedo increase for urban areas of about 0.1. Many studies have demonstrated building cooling-energy savings in excess of 20% upon raising roof reflectivity from an existing 10-20% to about 60%. We estimate U.S. potential savings in excess of $1 billion (B) per year in net annual energy bills. Increasing albedo of urban surfaces can reduce the summertime urban temperature and improve the urban air quality. Increasing the urban albedo has the added benefit of reflecting more of the incoming global solar radiation and countering the effect of global warming. We estimate that increasing albedo of urban areas by 0.1 results in an increase of 3 x 10{sup -4} in Earth albedo. Using a simple global model, the change in air temperature in lowest 1.8 km of the atmosphere is estimated at 0.01K. Modelers predict a warming of about 3K in the next 60 years (0.05K/year). Change of 0.1 in urban albedo will result in 0.01K global cooling, a delay of {approx}0.2 years in global warming. This 0.2 years delay in global warming is equivalent to 10 Gt reduction in CO2 emissions.

Issues related to developing information resources for assessing the health effects from chemical exposure include the question of how to address the individual political issues relevant to identifying and determining the timeliness, scientific credibility, and completeness of such kinds of information resources. One of the important ways for agencies to share information is through connection tables. This type of software is presently being used to build information products for some DHHS agencies. One of the challenges will be to convince vendors of data of the importance of trying to make data files available to communities that need them. In the future, information processing will be conducted with neural networks, object-oriented database management systems, and fuzzy-set technologies, and meta analysis techniques.

Advanced Outage Control Center (AOCC), is a multi-year pilot project targeted at Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) outage improvement. The purpose of this pilot project is to improve management of NPP outages through the development of an AOCC that is specifically designed to maximize the usefulness of communication and collaboration technologies for outage coordination and problem resolution activities. This report documents the results of a benchmarking effort to evaluate the transferability of technologies demonstrated at Idaho National Laboratory and the primary pilot project partner, Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. The initial assumption for this pilot project was that NPPs generally do not take advantage of advanced technology to support outage management activities. Several researchers involved in this pilot project have commercial NPP experience and believed that very little technology has been applied towards outage communication and collaboration. To verify that the technology options researched and demonstrated through this pilot project would in fact have broad application for the US commercial nuclear fleet, and to look for additional outage management best practices, LWRS program researchers visited several additional nuclear facilities.

Windows and building envelope research and development is a high priority for the Building Technologies Office. This roadmap is a useful resource for public and private decision makers evaluating and pursuing high-impact R&D focused on advancing next-generation energy efficient windows and building envelope technologies.

The need for productive conservation strategies in urban transportation is discussed. Key trends in urban transportation are discussed as a basis for identifying target areas for productive conservation strategies. The need for and expected impacts of such candidate strategies as improvements in conventional automobiles, increases in automobile load factors, changes in highway and transit system operation, price-driven reductions in travel, and shifts to more-efficient modes are briefly outlined.

Building America Top Innovation | Department of Energy High Performance Without Increased Cost: Urbane Homes, Louisville, KY - Building America Top Innovation High Performance Without Increased Cost: Urbane Homes, Louisville, KY - Building America Top Innovation Photo of a Housing Award logo with a home. This Top Innovation highlights Building America field projects that demonstrated minimal or cost-neutral impacts for high-performance homes and that have significantly influenced the housing

Urban watersheds are often sources of nitrogen (N) to downstream systems, contributing to poor water quality. However, it is unknown which components (e.g., land cover and stormwater infrastructure type) of urban watersheds contribute to N export and which may be sites of retention. In this study we investigated which watershed characteristics control N sourcing, biogeochemical processing of nitrate (NO3â) during storms, and the amount of rainfall N that is retained within urban watersheds. We used triple isotopes of NO3â (Î´15N, Î´18O, and Î17O) to identify sources and transformations of NO3â during storms from 10 nested arid urban watersheds that varied in stormwater infrastructure type and drainage area. Stormwater infrastructure and land coverâretention basins, pipes, and grass coverâdictated the sourcing of NO3â in runoff. Urban watersheds can be strong sinks or sources of N to stormwater depending on the proportion of rainfall that leaves the watershed as runoff, but we found no evidence that denitrification occurred during storms. Our results suggest that watershed characteristics control the sources and transport of inorganic N in urban stormwater but that retention of inorganic N at the timescale of individual runoff events is controlled by hydrologic, rather than biogeochemical, mechanisms.

The U.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment (HUD) is accepting applications to develop of viable Indian and Alaska Native communities, including the creation of decent housing, suitable living environments, and economic opportunities primarily for persons with low- and moderate-incomes.

As accurate modeling of atmospheric flows in urban environments requires sophisticated representation of complex urban geometries, much work has been devoted to treatment of the urban surface. However, the importance of the larger-scale flow impinging upon the urban complex to the flow, transport and dispersion within it and downwind has received less attention. Building-resolving computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models are commonly employed to investigate interactions between the flow and three-dimensional structures comprising the urban environment, however such models are typically forced with simplified boundary conditions that fail to include important regional-scale phenomena that can strongly influence the flow within the urban complex and downwind. This paper investigates the interaction of an important and frequently occurring regional-scale phenomenon, the nocturnal low-level jet (LLJ), with urban-scale turbulence and dispersion in Oklahoma City using data from the Joint URBAN 2003 (JU2003) field experiment. Two simulations of nocturnal tracer release experiments from JU2003 using Lawrence Livermore National laboratory's FEM3MP CFD model yield differing levels of agreement with the observations in wind speed, turbulence kinetic energy (TKE) and concentration profiles in the urban wake, approximately 750m downwind of the central business district. Profiles of several observed turbulence parameters at this location indicate characteristics of both bottom-up and top-down boundary layers during each of the experiments. These data are consistent with turbulence production due to at least two sources, the complex flow structures of the urban area and the region of strong vertical wind shear occurring beneath the LLJs present each night. While strong LLJs occurred each night, their structures varied considerably, resulting in significant differences in the magnitudes of the turbulence parameters observed during the two experiments. As FEM3MP was forced only

The U.S. Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment (HUD) Southwest Office of Native American Programs is conducting this training workshop to assist applicants with the Indian Community Development Block Grant Program.

It has been four years since the Clean Air Act was amended in November of 1990. Much work has been done in this time, and the country is beginning to see real air quality benefits. Although these changes have not completely licked the urban ozone problem yet, they have made a lot of progress. All of the urban areas which have been required to reduce their ozone levels have done a good job of lowering their emissions. While the urban areas have not all been able to meet every federal deadline, the areas have all been able to achieve the control milestones before the mandatory Clean Air Act sanctions have taken effect. Some areas are even ready to declare their ozone problems solved.

The author discusses issues related to the Chicago urban environment from her perspective in the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency. Understanding of the ozone air pollution problem in the Chicago area has undergone significant changes in the past three years, and there is still more to be understood about the complex factors which contribute to ozone pollution over urban areas such as Chicago. Ability to address these problems to present clean air standards is not in hand at present. The author asserts that information, and the ability of governmental agencies to ingest and respond to that information in a timely manner is a key to improvement of the environment in urban areas in reasonable time spans. In addition cost and price information on environmental control and protection needs to be more clearly presented to the people so they can understand the difficult choices which must be made in addressing these environmental problems.

The objective of this project was to develop a method, at the pilot scale, for the economical production of hydrogen from peanut shells. During the project period a pilot scale process, based on the bench scale process developed at NREL (National Renewable Energy Lab), was developed and successfully operated to produce hydrogen from peanut shells. The technoeconomic analysis of the process suggests that the production of hydrogen via this method is cost-competitive with conventional means of hydrogen production.

Background: Few risk factors for the childhood leukemia are well established. While a small fraction of cases of childhood leukemia might be partially attributable to some diseases or ionizing radiation exposure, the role of industrial and urban pollution also needs to be assessed. Objectives: To ascertain the possible effect of residential proximity to both industrial and urban areas on childhood leukemia, taking into account industrial groups and toxic substances released. Methods: We conducted a population-based caseâcontrol study of childhood leukemia in Spain, covering 638 incident cases gathered from the Spanish Registry of Childhood Tumors and for those Autonomous Regions with 100% coverage (period 1990-2011), and 13,188 controls, individually matched by year of birth, sex, and autonomous region of residence. Distances were computed from the respective subjectâs residences to the 1068 industries and the 157 urban areas with â¥10,000 inhabitants, located in the study area. Using logistic regression, odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) for categories of distance to industrial and urban pollution sources were calculated, with adjustment for matching variables. Results: Excess risk of childhood leukemia was observed for children living near (â¤2.5 km) industries (OR=1.31; 95%CI=1.03â1.67) â particularly glass and mineral fibers (OR=2.42; 95%CI=1.49â3.92), surface treatment using organic solvents (OR=1.87; 95%CI=1.24â2.83), galvanization (OR=1.86; 95%CI=1.07â3.21), production and processing of metals (OR=1.69; 95%CI=1.22â2.34), and surface treatment of metals (OR=1.62; 95%CI=1.22â2.15) â , and urban areas (OR=1.36; 95%CI=1.02â1.80). Conclusions: Our study furnishes some evidence that living in the proximity of industrial and urban sites may be a risk factor for childhood leukemia. - Highlights: â¢ We studied proximity to both industrial and urban sites on childhood leukemia. â¢ We conducted a caseâcontrol study in

Energy Next-Generation Appliances Research & Development Roadmap: Next-Generation Appliances The Research and Development (R&D) Roadmap for Next-Generation Appliances provides recommendations to the Building Technologies Office (BTO) on R&D activities to pursue that will aid in achieving BTO's energy savings goals. For appliances, BTO targets 14% and 29% primary energy savings by 2020 and 2030, respectively. The recommended initiatives in the report target high-priority R&D,

This report is an assessment of 135 different heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) technologies for U.S. residential buildings to identify and provide analysis on 19 priority technology options in various stages of development. The analyses include an estimation of technical energy-savings potential, descriptions of technical maturity, descriptions of non-energy benefits, descriptions of current barriers for market adoption, and descriptions of the technology's applicability to different building or HVAC equipment types. From these technology descriptions, are suggestions for potential research, development and demonstration (RD&D) initiatives that would support further development of the priority technology options.

This report covers an assessment of 182 different heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) technologies for U.S. commercial buildings to identify and provide analysis on 17 priority technology options in various stages of development. The analyses include an estimation of technical energy-savings potential, description of technical maturity, description of non-energy benefits, description of current barriers for market adoption, and description of the technologyâs applicability to different building or HVAC equipment types. From these technology descriptions, are suggestions for potential research, development and demonstration (RD&D) initiatives that would support further development of the priority technology options.

The effectiveness of EIA for evaluating transport planning projects is increasingly being questioned by practitioners, institutions and scholars. The academic literature has traditionally focused more on solving content-related problems with EIA (i.e. the measurement of environmental effects) than on process-related issues (i.e. the role of EIA in the planning process and the interaction between key actors). Focusing only on technical improvements is not sufficient for rectifying the effectiveness problems of EIA. In order to address this knowledge gap, the paper explores how EIA is experienced in the Spanish planning context and offers in-depth insight into EIA process-related issues in the field of urban transport planning. From the multitude of involved actors, the research focuses on exploring the perceptions of the two main professional groups: EIA developers and transport planners. Through a web-based survey we assess the importance of process-related barriers to the effective use of EIA in urban transport planning. The analyses revealed process issues based fundamentally on unstructured stakeholders involvement and an inefficient public participation - Highlights: â¢ Qualitative research on perceptions of EIA participants on EIA processes. â¢ Web-based survey with different participants (EIA-developers; transport planners). â¢ It was seen an inefficient participation of stakeholders during the EIA processes.

Pursuant to the National Response Plan, Nuclear/Radiological Incident Annex [1], the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is assigned lead agency responsibility for decontamination and clean-up efforts following a domestic terrorist event involving a radiological dispersal device (RDD). An RDD incident in a modern city environment poses many of the same issues and problems traditionally faced at 'legacy' clean up projects being performed across our country. However there are also many aspects associated with an urban RDD clean-up that have never been faced in legacy site remediation. For example, the demolition and destructive technologies widely used in legacy remediation would be unacceptable in the case of historically or architecturally significant properties or those with prohibitively high replacement cost; contaminated properties will likely belong to numerous small private entities whose business interests are at stake; reducing the time required to decontaminate and return a city to normal use cannot be overemphasized due to its tremendous economic and political impact. The mission of the EPA's National Homeland Security Research Center (NHSRC) includes developing the best technology and tools needed for field personnel to achieve their goals should that event occur. To that end, NHSRC has been exploring how the vast experience within the legacy site remediation community could be tapped to help meet this need, and to identify gaps in decontamination technology. This paper articulates much of what has been learned over the past year as a result of efforts to identify these technology and procedural needs to address the urban RDD. This includes comparing and contrasting remediation techniques and methodologies currently used in nuclear facility and site cleanup with those that would be needed following an urban RDD event. Finally, this presentation includes an appeal to the radiological decontamination community to come forward with ideas and technologies

The NUclear EVacuation Analysis Code (NUEVAC) has been developed by Sandia National Laboratories to support the analysis of shelter-evacuate (S-E) strategies following an urban nuclear detonation. This tool can model a range of behaviors, including complex evacuation timing and path selection, as well as various sheltering or mixed evacuation and sheltering strategies. The calculations are based on externally generated, high resolution fallout deposition and plume data. Scenario setup and calculation outputs make extensive use of graphics and interactive features. This software is designed primarily to produce quantitative evaluations of nuclear detonation response options. However, the outputs have also proven useful in the communication of technical insights concerning shelter-evacuate tradeoffs to urban planning or response personnel.

Abstract A biological attack would present an unprecedented challenge for local, state, and federal agencies; the military; the private sector; and individuals on many fronts ranging from vaccination and treatment to prioritization of cleanup actions to waste disposal. To prepare the Seattle region to recover from a biological attack, the Seattle Urban Area Security Initiative (UASI) partners collaborated with military and federal agencies to develop a Regional Recovery Framework for a Biological Attack in the Seattle Urban Area. The goal was to reduce the time and resources required to recover and restore wide urban areas, military installations, and other critical infrastructure following a biological incident by providing a coordinated systems approach. Based on discussions in small workshops, tabletop exercises, and interviews with emergency response agency staff, the partners identified concepts of operation for various areas to address critical issues the region will face as recovery progresses. Key to this recovery is the recovery of the economy. Although the Framework is specific to a catastrophic, wide-area biological attack using anthrax, it was designed to be flexible and scalable so it could also serve as the recovery framework for an all-hazards approach. The Framework also served to coalesce policy questions that must be addressed for long-term recovery. These questions cover such areas as safety and health, security, financial management, waste management, legal issues, and economic development.

The IRIS (International Reactor Innovative and Secure) reactor design is being developed by an international consortium of 21 organizations from ten countries, including three members from Brazil and one from Mexico. This reflects the interest that Latin America has for a project which addresses the energy needs of the region. Presented here are some of the most recent developments in the IRIS project. The project's highest priority is the current pre-application licensing with the US NRC, which has required an investigation of the major accident sequences and a preliminary probabilistic risk assessment (PRA). The results of the accident analyses confirmed the outstanding inherent safety of the IRIS configuration and the PRA analyses indicated a core damage frequency due to internal events of the order of 2E-8. This not only highlights the enhanced safety characteristic of IRIS which should enhance its public acceptance, but it has also prompted IRIS to consider the possibility of being licensed without the need for off-site emergency response planning which would have a very positive economic implication. The modular IRIS, with each module rated at {approx} 335 MWe, is of course an ideal size for developing countries as it allows to easily introduce a moderate amount of power on limited electric grids. IRIS can be deployed in single modules in regions only requiring a few hundred MWs or in multiple modules deployed successively at time intervals in large urban areas requiring a larger amount of power increasing with time. IRIS is designed to operate ''hands-off'' as much as possible, with a small crew, having in mind deployment in areas with limited infrastructure. Thus IRIS has a 48-months maintenance interval, long refueling cycles in excess of three years, and is designed to increase as much as possible operational reliability. For example, the project has recently adopted internal control rod drive mechanisms to eliminate vessel head penetrations and the

Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Household waste management of a new carbon neutral settlement. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer EASEWASTE as a LCA tool to compare different centralised and decentralised solutions. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Environmental benefit or close to zero impact in most of the categories. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Paper and metal recycling important for the outcome. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Discusses the challenges of waste prevention planning. - Abstract: When planning for a new urban settlement, industrial ecology tools like scenario building and life cycle assessment can be used to assess the environmental quality of different infrastructure solutions. In Trondheim, a new greenfield settlement with carbon-neutral ambitions is being planned and five different scenarios for the waste management system of the new settlement have been compared. The results show small differences among the scenarios, however, some benefits from increased source separation of paper and metal could be found. The settlement should connect to the existing waste management system of the city, and not resort to decentralised waste treatment or recovery methods. However, as this is an urbandevelopment project with ambitious goals for lifestyle changes, effort should be put into research and initiatives for proactive waste prevention and reuse issues.

In the aftermath of a Radiological Dispersal Device (RDD, also known as a dirty bomb) it will be necessary to remediate the site including building exteriors and interiors, equipment, pavement, vehicles, personal items etc. Remediation will remove or reduce radioactive contamination from the area using a combination of removing and disposing of many assets (including possible demolition of buildings), decontaminating and returning to service other assets, and fixing in place or leaving in place contamination that is deemed 'acceptable'. The later will require setting acceptable dose standards, which will require negotiation with all involved parties and a balance of risk and cost to benefit. To accomplish the first two, disposal or decontamination, a combination of technologies will be deployed that can be loosely classified as: Decontamination; Equipment removal and size reduction; and Demolition. This report will deal only with the decontamination technologies that will be used to return assets to service or to reduce waste disposal. It will not discuss demolition, size reduction or removal technologies or equipment (e.g., backhoe mounted rams, rock splitter, paving breakers and chipping hammers, etc.). As defined by the DOE (1994), decontamination is removal of radiological contamination from the surfaces of facilities and equipment. Expertise in this field comes primarily from the operation and decommissioning of DOE and commercial nuclear facilities as well as a small amount of ongoing research and development closely related to RDD decontamination. Information related to decontamination of fields, buildings, and public spaces resulting from the Goiania and Chernobyl incidents were also reviewed and provide some meaningful insight into decontamination at major urban areas. In order to proceed with decontamination, the item being processed needs to have an intrinsic value that exceeds the cost of the cleaning and justifies the exposure of any workers during the

Without the social will, no city can successfully Undertake the planning and programs necessary for meaningful progress toward sustainability. Social will derives from wellsprings of vital societal health. This paper presents an approach to helping cities in APEC member economies initiate a program for developing indicators of sustainability. Representative indicators of social capital and other aspects of civic engagement, as proxies for societal health, are presented.

The Quick Urban & Industrial Complex (QUIC) Dispersion Modeling System has been developed to rapidly compute the transport and dispersion of toxic agent releases in the vicinity of buildings. It is composed of an empirical-diagnostic wind solver, an 'urbanized' Lagrangian random-walk model, and a graphical user interface. The code has been used for homeland security and environmental air pollution applications. In this paper, we discuss the wind solver methodology and improvements made to the original Roeckle schemes in order to better capture flow fields in dense built-up areas. The mode1-computed wind and concentration fields are then compared to measurements from several field experiments. Improvements to the QUIC Dispersion Modeling System have been made to account for the inhomogeneous and complex building layouts found in large cities. The logic that has been introduced into the code is described and comparisons of model output to full-scale outdoor urban measurements in Oklahoma City and New York City are given. Although far from perfect, the model agreed fairly well with measurements and in many cases performed equally to CFD codes.

Basic research needed to facilitate development of geothermal energy is identified. An attempt has been made to make the report representative of the ideas of productive workers in the field. The present state of knowledge of geothermal energy is presented and then specific recommendations for further research, with status and priorities, are listed. Discussion is limited to a small number of applicable concepts, namely: origin of geothermal flux; transport of geothermal energy; geothermal reservoirs; rock-water interactions, and geophysical and geochemical exploration.

Critical infrastructure disruption, caused by severe weather events, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, etc., has significant impacts on urban transportation systems. We built a computational framework to simulate urban transportation systems under critical infrastructure disruption in order to aid real-time emergency evacuation. This framework will use large scale datasets to provide a scalable tool for emergency planning and management. Our framework, World-Wide Emergency Evacuation (WWEE), integrates population distribution and urban infrastructure networks to model travel demand in emergency situations at global level. Also, a computational model of agent-based traffic simulation is used to provide an optimal evacuation plan for traffic operation purpose [1]. In addition, our framework provides a web-based high resolution visualization tool for emergency evacuation modelers and practitioners. We have successfully tested our framework with scenarios in both United States (Alexandria, VA) and Europe (Berlin, Germany) [2]. However, there are still some major drawbacks for scaling this framework to handle big data workloads in real time. On our back-end, lack of proper infrastructure limits us in ability to process large amounts of data, run the simulation efficiently and quickly, and provide fast retrieval and serving of data. On the front-end, the visualization performance of microscopic evacuation results is still not efficient enough due to high volume data communication between server and client. We are addressing these drawbacks by using cloud computing and next-generation web technologies, namely Node.js, NoSQL, WebGL, Open Layers 3 and HTML5 technologies. We will describe briefly about each one and how we are using and leveraging these technologies to provide an efficient tool for emergency management organizations. Our early experimentation demonstrates that using above technologies is a promising approach to build a scalable and high performance urban

Quality-assured meteorological and tracer data sets are vital for establishing confidence that indoor and outdoor dispersion models used to simulate dispersal of potential toxic agents in urban atmospheres are giving trustworthy results. The U.S. Department of Defense-Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security joined together to conduct the Joint Urban 2003 atmospheric dispersion study to provide this critically-needed high-resolution dispersion data. This major urban study was conducted from June 28 through July 31, 2003, in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with the participation of over 150 scientists and engineers from over 20 U.S. and foreign institutions. The Joint Urban 2003 lead scientist was Jerry Allwine (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) who oversaw study design, logistical arrangements and field operations with the help of Joe Shinn (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Marty Leach (Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory), Ray Hosker (Atmospheric Turbulence and Diffusion Division), Leo Stockham (Northrop Grumman Information Technology) and Jim Bowers (Dugway Proving Grounds). This report gives a brief overview of the field campaign, describing the scientific objectives, the dates of the intensive observation periods, and the instruments deployed. The data from this field study is available to the scientific community through an on-line database that is managed by Dugway Proving Ground. This report will be included in the database to provide its users with some general information about the field study, and specific information about the instrument coordinates. Appendix A of this document provides the definitive record of the instrument locations during this field campaign, and Appendix B lists all the study principal investigators and participants.

This report assesses the environmental consequences of the transportation of radioactive materials in densely populated urban areas, including estimates of the radiological, nonradiological, and social impacts arising from this process. The chapters of the report and the appendices which follow detail the methodology and results for each of four causative event categories: incident free transport, vehicular accidents, human errors or deviations from accepted quality assurance practices, and sabotage or malevolent acts. The numerical results are expressed in terms of the expected radiological and economic impacts from each. Following these discussions, alternatives to the current transport practice are considered. Then, the detailed analysis is extended from a limited area of New York city to other urban areas. The appendices contain the data bases and specific models used to evaluate these impacts, as well as discussions of chemical toxicity and the social impacts of radioactive material transport in urban areas. The latter are evaluated for each causative event category in terms of psychological, sociological, political, legal, and organizational impacts. The report is followed by an extensive bibliography covering the many fields of study which were required in performing the analysis.

Municipal electric utilities may take advantage of grants from the Department of Housing and UrbanDevelopment (HUD) to finance a wide range of conservation and alternative energy projects. UrbanDevelopment Action Grants (UDAG) is a flexible program aimed at creating government, community, and private industry partnerships. The grants, dispensed through the local government, provide 14 to 28 percent of a project's cost. An eligible community must meet certain demographic criteria and is informed within two months if its application is accepted. Other HUD grant programs consider poverty pockets and innovative energy proposals. (DCK)

The Hyde Park Landfill National Priorities List Site was used by Hooker Chemical and Plastic Corporation, now Occidental Chemical Corporation, to dispose of approximately 80,000 tons of waste from 1953 to 1975. Significant amounts of 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin is believed to be in the landfill. Site-related contaminants have been detected in the overburden and bedrock aquifers. Analyses of samples taken from ground water seeps at the Niagara Gorge Face also show site-related contaminants. Leachate from the landfill appears to have entered Bloody Run Creek. Sediment sample analyses from the creek show site-related contaminants. The 1985 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Enforcement Decision Document outlines remedial activities to be conducted at the site. The site without remediation is of potential public health concern because of the risk to human health resulting from possible exposure to hazardous substances at concentrations that may result in adverse health effects.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Office requested support from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) contract to delineate the extent of strontium titanate (SrTiO3) contamination in and around Solid Waste Storage Area (SWSA) 7 as part of the Oak Ridge National Priorities List Site boundary definition program. The study area is presented in Fig. 1.1 relative to the Oak Ridge Reservation (ORR). The investigation was executed according to Sampling and Analysis Plan/Quality Assurance Project Plan (SAP/QAPP) (DOE 2011) to supplement previous investigations noted below and to determine what areas, if any, have been adversely impacted by site operations.

State | Department of Energy 2: December 7, 2015 Rural versus Urban Vehicle Miles of Travel by State Fact #902: December 7, 2015 Rural versus Urban Vehicle Miles of Travel by State SUBSCRIBE to the Fact of the Week In the United States, the U.S. Department of Transportation classifies 3.9 million miles of roadway as rural and 1.2 million miles of roadway as urban. Each state has a different travel pattern affecting the proportion of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) on rural versus urban roads.

The FY 2010 Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) Annual Report is a compendium of the diverse research performed to develop and ensure the INL's technical capabilities can support the future DOE missions and national research priorities. LDRD is essential to the INL -- it provides a means for the laboratory to pursue novel scientific and engineering research in areas that are deemed too basic or risky for programmatic investments. This research enhances technical capabilities at the laboratory, providing scientific and engineering staff with opportunities for skill building and partnership development.

Achieving sustainable development requires a revision of the present view of the nature of the city as an environment, and its relation to a larger ecosystem of which it is an essential part. The environmental health of a wilderness area is inextricably related to the environmental, and economic, health of the great urban centers. The vitality of dense metropolitan areas, where population and economic activities are concentrated, is key to the preservation of productive farm lands, wildlife habitat, and open spaces. The social and economic crisis which grips many metropolitan centers, with attendant flight of industry and development to the so-called {open_quotes}greenfields,{close_quotes} fundamentally spreads a broader crisis to our common ecosystem. This crisis is marked by the obliteration of habitat necessary for biodiversity, loss of fertile farm land, and the contamination of air, water and land, as an unescapable effect of the sprawl created by flight from the urban centers. The removal of false conceptual distinctions between the city and nature, distinctions that are unfortunately at the heart of so much of American environmental philosophy, is key to the concept of `sustainable development.` This article sets forth how the City of Chicago is implementing this understanding of the nature of the urban environment, in pursuit of sustainable development within the city.

Argonne Leadership Computing Facility Measuring and Mitigating Urban Warming in a Northern Metropolitan Area Event Sponsor: Environmental Science Seminar Start Date: Aug 25 2016 - 11:00am Building/Room: Building 240/Room 4301 Location: Argonne National Laboratory Speaker(s): Peter Snyder Speaker(s) Title: University of Minnesota In the United States and much of the rest of the world, cities are warming at twice the rate of outlying rural areas and the planet as a whole. While the warming can

This report documents a project undertaken for theCalifornia Urban Water Conservation Council (the Council) to create a newmethod of accounting for the diverse environmental benefits of raw watersavings. The environmental benefits (EB) model was designed to providewater utilities with a practical tool that they can use to assign amonetary value to the benefits that may accrue from implementing any ofthe Council-recommended Best Management Practices. The model treats onlyenvironmental services associated directly with water, and is intended tocover miscellaneous impacts that are not currently accounted for in anyother cost-benefit analysis.

The amount of information available about urban traffic from aerial video imagery is extremely high. Here we discuss the collection of such video imagery from a helicopter platform with a low-cost sensor, and the post-processing used to correct radial distortion in the data and register it. The radial distortion correction is accomplished using a Harris model. The registration is implemented in a two-step process, using a globally applied polyprojective correction model followed by a fine scale local displacement field adjustment. The resulting cleaned-up data is sufficiently well-registered to allow subsequent straight-forward vehicle tracking.

This paper presents a framework for analysing the degree of consideration of sustainability principles in Strategic environmental assessment (SEA), and demonstrates its application to a sample of SEA of Italian urban plans. The framework is based on Gibson's (2006) sustainability principles, which are linked to a number of guidance criteria and eventually to review questions, resulting from an extensive literature review. A total of 71 questions are included in the framework, which gives particular emphasis to key concepts, such as intragenerational and intergenerational equity. The framework was applied to review the Environmental Report of the urban plans of 15 major Italian cities. The results of this review show that, even if sustainability is commonly considered as a pivotal concept, there is still work to be done in order to effectively integrate sustainability principles into SEA. In particular, most of the attention is given to mitigation and compensation measures, rather than to actual attempts to propose more sustainable planning decisions in the first place. Concerning the proposed framework of analysis, further research is required to clarify equity concerns and particularly to identify suitable indicators for operationalizing the concepts of intra/inter-generational equity in decision-making. -- Highlights: âº A framework was developed in order to evaluate planning against sustainability criteria. âº The framework was applied to analyse how sustainable principles are addressed in 15 Italian SEA reports. âº Over 85% of the reports addressed, to some extent, at least 40% of the framework questions. âº Criteria explicitly linked to intra and inter-generational equity are rarely addressed.

This program promotes the development of viable urban communities by providing decent housing, a suitable living environment, and expanded economic opportunities, principally for persons of low and moderate incomes. It provides grantees with the flexibility to plan programs that best meet their unique needs within the programâs broad mission, and these funds can be applied toward solar projects that meet the criteria for the program.

Trace metal levels were monitored over a nine month period in two urban creeks in the Hamilton Harbour watershed and in two urban stormwater retention ponds in Guelph, Ontario. Samples were collected both during dry or non-event periods and immediately after wet weather events. Both water and surficial sediment samples were collected and tested for cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, and zinc. In almost all cases during wet weather conditions, Canadian Water Quality Guidelines for the protection of freshwater aquatic life were exceeded in water for lead (>7 mg/L), copper (>4 mg/L), and zinc (>30 mg/L) . Both stormwater ponds accumulated trace metals in sediment to levels above the lowest effect level guideline for the protection and management of aquatic sediment in Ontario, and, in the case of zinc (> 820 ug/g), above the severe effect level guideline. These levels of contamination raise serious concerns about the use of these and similar facilities as habitat for biota.

Terrorists have threatened and carried out chemicalhiological agent attacks on targets in major cities. The nerve agent sarin figured prominently in one well-publicized incident. Vapors disseminating from open containers in a Tokyo subway caused thousands of casualties. High-resolution tracer transport modeling of agent dispersion is at hand and will be enhanced by data on reactions with components of the urban atmosphere. As a sample of the level of complexity currently attainable, we elaborate the mechanisms by which sarin can decompose in polluted air. A release scenario is outlined involving the passage of a gas-phase agent through a city locale in the daytime. The atmospheric chemistry database on related organophosphorus pesticides is mined for rate and product information. The hydroxyl,radical and fine-mode particles are identified as major reactants. A review of urban air chernistry/rnicrophysics generates concentration tables for major oxidant and aerosol types in both clean and dirty environments. Organic structure-reactivity relationships yield an upper limit of 10-1' cm3 molecule-' S-* for hydrogen abstraction by hydroxyl. The associated midday loss time scale could be as little as one hour. Product distributions are difficult to define but may include nontoxic organic oxygenates, inorganic phosphorus acids, sarin-like aldehydes, and nitrates preserving cholinergic capabilities. Agent molecules will contact aerosol surfaces in on the order of minutes, with hydrolysis and side-chain oxidation as likely reaction channels.

The enactment and implementation of the 2003 EIA Law in China institutionalised the role of plan environmental impact assessment (PEIA). While the philosophy, methodology and mechanisms of PEIA have gradually permeated through the various levels of government with a positive effect on the process and outcome of urban planning, only a few cities in China have so far carried out PEIA as a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA)-type procedure. One such case is the southern city of Shenzhen. During the past three decades, Shenzhen has grown from a small town to a large and booming city as China has successfully and rapidly developed its economy by adopting the 'reform and open door' policy. In response to the challenges arising from the generally divergent processes of rapid urbanisation, economic transformation and environment protection, Shenzhen has incrementally adopted the SEA concept in developing the city's Master Urban Plan. As such, this paper reviews the effectiveness of PEIA in three ways: {center_dot}as a tool and process for achieving more sustainable and strategic planning; {center_dot}to determine the level of integration of SEA within the planning system; and, {center_dot}its effectiveness vis-a-vis implementation. The implementation of PEIA within Shenzhen's Master Urban Plan offers important insights into the emergence of innovative practices in undertaking PEIA as well as theoretical contributions to the field, especially in exploring the relationship between PEIA and SEA and highlighting the central role of local governing institutions in SEA development.

The heat island effect and the high use of fossil fuels in large city centers is well documented, but by how much fossil fuel consumption is elevating atmospheric CO2 concentrations and whether elevations in both atmospheric CO2 and air temperature are consistent from year to year are less well known. Our aim was to record atmospheric CO2 concentrations, air temperature and other environmental variables in an urban area and compare it to suburban and rural sites to see if urban sites are experiencing climates expected globally in the future with climate change. A transect was established from Baltimore city center (Urban site), to the outer suburbs of Baltimore (suburban site) and out to an organic farm (rural site). At each site a weather station was set-up to monitor environmental variables annually for five years. Atmospheric CO2 was significantly increased on average by 66 ppm from the rural to the urban site over the five years of the study. Air temperature was significantly higher at the urban site (14.8 oC) compared to the suburban (13.6 oC) and rural (12.7 oC) sites. Relative humidity was not different between sites but vapor pressure deficit (VPD) was significantly higher at the urban site compared to the suburban and rural sites. During wet years relative humidity was significantly increased and VPD significantly reduced. Increased nitrogen deposition at the rural site (2.1 % compared to 1.8 and 1.2 % at the suburban and urban sites) was small enough not to affect soil nitrogen content. Dense urban areas with large populations and high vehicular traffic have significantly different microclimates compared to outlying suburban and rural areas. The increases in atmospheric CO2 and air temperature are similar to changes predicted in the short term with global climate change, therefore providing an environment suitable for studying future effects of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems.

The article examines the interlinkages between recent developments in conflict management and impact assessment procedures in the context of urban planning in Finland. It sets out by introducing the fields of impact assessment and conflict mediation. It then proceeds to discuss the development of impact assessment practices and the status of conflict mediation in Finnish land use planning. The case of Korteniitty infill development plan in Jyvaeskylae is used to demonstrate how the Finnish planning system operates in conflict situations - and how social impact assessment can contribute to managing planning conflicts. The authors ask how the processes of impact assessment contribute to conflict management. Based on the Finnish experience, it is argued that social impact assessment of land use plans can contribute to conflict management, especially in the absence of institutionalised conflict mediation processes. In addition, SIA may acquire features of conflict mediation, depending on extent and intensity of stakeholder participation in the process, and the quality of linkages it between knowledge production and decision-making. Simultaneously, conflict mediation practices and theoretical insights can inform the application of SIA to help it address land use conflicts more consciously.

This report describes the initial results of a study being conducted as part of the Urban Search Planning Tool project. The study is comparing the Urban Scene Simulator (USS), a one-dimensional (1D) radiation transport model developed at LLNL, with the three-dimensional (3D) radiation transport model from ORNL using the MCNP, SCALE/ORIGEN and SCALE/MAVRIC simulation codes. In this study, we have analyzed the differences between the two approaches at every step, from source term representation, to estimating flux and detector count rates at a fixed distance from a simple surface (slab), and at points throughout more complex 3D scenes.

This Technical Report on Climate Change and Infrastructure, Urban Systems, and Vulnerabilities has been prepared for the U.S. Department of Energy by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in support of the U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA). It is a summary of the currently existing knowledge base on its topic, nested within a broader framing of issues and questions that need further attention in the longer run. The report arrives at a number of assessment findings, each associated with an evaluation of the level of consensus on that issue within the expert community, the volume of evidence available to support that judgment, and the section of the report that provides an explanation for the finding. Cross-sectoral issues related to infrastructures and urban systems have not received a great deal of attention to date in research literatures in general and climate change assessments in particular. As a result, this technical report is breaking new ground as a component of climate change vulnerability and impact assessments in the U.S., which means that some of its assessment findings are rather speculative, more in the nature of propositions for further study than specific conclusions that are offered with a high level of confidence and research support. But it is a start in addressing questions that are of interest to many policymakers and stakeholders. A central theme of the report is that vulnerabilities and impacts are issues beyond physical infrastructures themselves. The concern is with the value of services provided by infrastructures, where the true consequences of impacts and disruptions involve not only the costs associated with the clean-up, repair, and/or replacement of affected infrastructures but also economic, social, and environmental effects as supply chains are disrupted, economic activities are suspended, and/or social well-being is threatened. Current knowledge indicates that vulnerability concerns tend to be focused on extreme weather events

Localization of the sources of small-arms fire, mortars, and rocket propelled grenades is an important problem in urban combat. Weapons of this type produce characteristic signatures, such as muzzle flashes, that are visible in the infrared. Indeed, several systems have been developed that exploit the infrared signature of muzzle flash to locate the positions of shooters. However, systems based on muzzle flash alone can have difficulty localizing weapons if the muzzle flash is obscured or suppressed. Moreover, optical clutter can be problematic to systems that rely on muzzle flash alone. Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) has developed a projectile tracking system that detects and localizes sources of small-arms fire, mortars and similar weapons using the thermal signature of the projectile rather than a muzzle flash. The thermal signature of a projectile, caused by friction as the projectile travels along its trajectory, cannot be concealed and is easily discriminated from optical clutter. The LLNL system was recently demonstrated at the MOUT facility of the Aberdeen Test Center [1]. In the live-fire demonstration, shooters armed with a variety of small-arms, including M-16s, AK-47s, handguns, mortars and rockets, were arranged at several positions in around the facility. Experiments ranged from a single-weapon firing a single-shot to simultaneous fire of all weapons on full automatic. The LLNL projectile tracking system was demonstrated to localize multiple shooters at ranges up to 400m, far greater than previous demonstrations. Furthermore, the system was shown to be immune to optical clutter that is typical in urban combat. This paper describes the image processing and localization algorithms designed to exploit the thermal signature of projectiles for shooter localization. The paper begins with a description of the image processing that extracts projectile information from a sequence of infrared images. Key to the processing is an adaptive spatio

Appliances present an attractive opportunity for near-term energy savings in existing building, because they are less expensive and replaced more regularly than heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems or building envelope components. This roadmap targets high-priority research and development (R&D), demonstration and commercialization activities that could significantly reduce residential appliance energy consumption. The main objective of the roadmap is to seek activities that accelerate the commercialization of high-efficiency appliance technologies while maintaining the competitiveness of American industry. The roadmap identified and evaluated potential technical innovations, defined research needs, created preliminary research and development roadmaps, and obtained stakeholder feedback on the proposed initiatives.

As part of the DOE/OGT response to recommendations and priorities established by industrial review of their overall R and D program, the Geothermal Materials Program at Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) is focusing on topics that can reduce O and M costs and increase competitiveness in foreign and domestic markets. Corrosion and scale control, well completion materials, and lost circulation control have high priorities. The first two topics are included in FY 1997 BNL activities, but work on lost circulation materials is constrained by budgetary limitations. The R and D, most of which is performed as cost-shared efforts with US geothermal firms, is rapidly moving into field testing phases. FY 1996 and 1997 accomplishments in the development of lightweight CO{sub 2}-resistant cements for well completions; corrosion resistant, thermally conductive polymer matrix composites for heat exchange applications; and metallic, polymer and ceramic-based corrosion protective coatings are given in this paper. In addition, plans for work that commenced in March 1997 on thermally conductive cementitious grouting materials for use with geothermal heat pumps (GHP), are discussed.

This paper describes the monitoring of several existing landslides in an urban area near Wollongong in the state of New South Wales, Australia. A brief overview of topography and geology is given and reference is made to the types of slope movement, processes and causal factors. Often the slope movements are extremely slow and imperceptible to the eye, and catastrophic failures are quite infrequent. However, cumulative movements at these slower rates do, over time, cause considerable distress to structures and disrupt residential areas and transport routes. Inclinometers and piezometers have been installed at a number of locations and monitoring of these has been very useful. The performance of instrumentation at different sites is discussed in relation to the monitoring of slope movements and pore pressures. Interval rates of inclinometer shear displacement have been compared with various periods of cumulative rainfall to assess the relationships.

Spurred by continuing urban growth and new federal mandates for control of nonpoint source pollution, local governments are increasingly concerned about the need to improve stormwater management. Long-term maintenance is a critical aspect of stormwater management if both water quality and water quantity benefits are to be realized in practice. The report examines what is actually being done in North Carolina cities to maintain stormwater systems and what selected stormwater experts feel should be done. Several actions are needed. First, local governments are recommended to pay greater attention to system planning, apply more stringent design standards, and monitor the effectiveness of structures protecting water quality as the most critical basis for successful long-term maintenance. Second, policy makers at all levels of government and researchers need to determine appropriate strategies for the treatment and disposal of accumulated sediments. Finally, further research about the best maintenance practices and financing arrangements may be needed.

The Urban Dispersion Program (UDP) was a 4-year project (2004â2007) funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security with additional support from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also contributed to UDP through funding a human-exposure component of the New York City (NYC) field studies in addition to supporting an EPA scientist in conducting modeling studies of NYC. The primary goal of UDP was to improve the scientific understanding of the flow and diffusion of airborne contaminants through and around the deep street canyons of NYC. The overall UDP project manager and lead scientist was Dr. Jerry Allwine of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. UDP had several accomplishments that included conducting two tracer and meteorological field studies in Midtown Manhattan.

Public concern about the environment, health and safety consequences of energy technology has been growing steadily for more than two decades in the United States. This concern forms an important boundary condition as the United States seeks to develop a new National Energy Strategy. Furthermore, the international aspects of the energy/environment interface such as acid rain global climate change and stratospheric ozone depletion are very prominent in US thinking. In fact, the energy systems of the world are becoming more closely coupled environmentally and otherwise. Now where is this coupling more important than that between the industrialized and developing world; the choices made by each will have profound effects on the other. The development of energy technologies compatible with both economic growth and improving and sustaining environmental quality represents a major R D challenge to the US and USSR. Decision about adoption of new technology and R D priorities can be improved by better measurements of how energy sources and uses are changing throughout the world and better methods to project the potential consequences of these decisions. Such projection require understanding relative risks of alternating existing and evolving technologies. All of these R D areas, technology improvement energy system monitoring and projection and comparative risk assessment are the topics of this seminar. Progress in each may be enhanced by collaboration and cooperation between our two countries. 7 refs., 27 figs., 5 tabs.

Cool roofs, cool pavements, and urban vegetation reduce energy use in buildings, lower local air pollutant concentrations, and decrease greenhouse gas emissions from urban areas. This report summarizes the results of a detailed monitoring project in India and related simulations of meteorology and air quality in three developing countries. The field results quantified direct energy savings from installation of cool roofs on individual commercial buildings. The measured annual energy savings potential from roof-whitening of previously black roofs ranged from 20-22 kWh/m2 of roof area, corresponding to an air-conditioning energy use reduction of 14-26% in commercial buildings. The study estimated that typical annual savings of 13-14 kWh/m2 of roof area could be achieved by applying white coating to uncoated concrete roofs on commercial buildings in the Metropolitan Hyderabad region, corresponding to cooling energy savings of 10-19%. With the assumption of an annual increase of 100,000 square meters of new roof construction for the next 10 years in the Metropolitan Hyderabad region, the annual cooling energy savings due to whitening concrete roof would be 13-14 GWh of electricity in year ten alone, with cumulative 10-year cooling energy savings of 73-79 GWh for the region. The estimated savings for the entire country would be at least 10 times the savings in Hyderabad, i.e., more than 730-790 GWh. We estimated that annual direct CO2 reduction associated with reduced energy use would be 11-12 kg CO2/m2 of flat concrete roof area whitened, and the cumulative 10-year CO2 reduction would be approximately 0.60-0.65 million tons in India. With the price of electricity estimated at seven Rupees per kWh, the annual electricity savings on air-conditioning would be approximately 93-101 Rupees per m2 of roof. This would translate into annual national savings of approximately one billion Rupees in year ten, and cumulative 10-year savings of over five billion Rupees for cooling

This article discusses the emissions resulting from the generation of electricity by utilities and their role in contributing to the environmental problems of acid rain, urban ozone, and climate change.

A physics-based statistical model and simulation/modeling method and system of electromagnetic wave propagation (wireless communication) in urban environments. In particular, the model is a computationally efficient close-formed parametric model of RF propagation in an urban environment which is extracted from a physics-based statistical wireless channel simulation method and system. The simulation divides the complex urban environment into a network of interconnected urban canyon waveguides which can be analyzed individually; calculates spectral coefficients of modal fields in the waveguides excited by the propagation using a database of statistical impedance boundary conditions which incorporates the complexity of building walls in the propagation model; determines statistical parameters of the calculated modal fields; and determines a parametric propagation model based on the statistical parameters of the calculated modal fields from which predictions of communications capability may be made.

The SUN Project is a new collaboration between the U.S. Department of Energy and the American Indian Science and Engineering Society to engage urban Native American youth in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields.

Local climate regulation by urban green areas is an important urban ecosystem service, as it reduces the extent of the urban heat island and therefore enhances quality of life. Local and regional planning policies can control land use changes in an urban region, which in turn alter local climate regulation. Thus, this paper describes a method for estimating the impacts of current land uses as well as local and regional planning policies on local climate regulation, using evapotranspiration and land surface emissivity as indicators. This method can be used by practitioners to evaluate their policies. An application of this method is demonstrated for the case study Leipzig (Germany). Results for six selected planning policies in Leipzig indicate their distinct impacts on climate regulation and especially the role of their spatial extent. The proposed method was found to easily produce a qualitative assessment of impacts of planning policies on climate regulation.

Case study of Urbane Homes, who worked with Building America to build market rate homes with HERS scores of 57 to 62. Despite a down market theyâve sold every home within 3 weeks of listing, without any advertising.

Modification of urban albedos reduces summertime urban temperatures, resulting in a better urban air quality and building air-conditioning savings. Furthermore, increasing urban albedos has the added benefit of reflecting some of the incoming global solar radiation and countering to some extent the effects of global warming. In many urban areas, pavements and roofs constitute over 60% of urban surfaces (roof 20-25%, pavements about 40%). Using reflective materials, both roof and the pavement albedos can be increased by about 0.25 and 0.10, respectively, resulting in a net albedo increase for urban areas of about 0.1. Many studies have demonstrated building cooling-energy savings in excess of 20% upon raising roof reflectivity from an existing 10-20% to about 60% (a U.S. potential savings in excess of $1 billion (B) per year in net annual energy bills). On a global basis, our preliminary estimate is that increasing the world-wide albedos of urban roofs and paved surfaces will induce a negative radiative forcing on the earth equivalent to removing {approx} 22-40 Gt of CO{sub 2} from the atmosphere. Since, 55% of the emitted CO{sub 2} remains in the atmosphere, removal of 22-40 Gt of CO{sub 2} from the atmosphere is equivalent to reducing global CO{sub 2} emissions by 40-73 Gt. At {approx} $25/tonne of CO{sub 2}, a 40-73 Gt CO{sub 2} emission reduction from changing the albedo of roofs and paved surfaces is worth about $1,000B to 1800B. These estimated savings are dependent on assumptions used in this study, but nevertheless demonstrate considerable benefits that may be obtained from cooler roofs and pavements.

The U.S. Department of Energy awarded Loyola University Chicago and the Institute of Environmental Sustainability (IES) $486,000.00 for the proposal entitled âChicago clean air, clean water project: Environmental monitoring for a healthy, sustainable urban future.â The project supported the purchase of analytical instruments for the development of an environmental analytical laboratory. The analytical laboratory is designed to support the testing of field water and soil samples for nutrients, industrial pollutants, heavy metals, and agricultural toxins, with special emphasis on testing Chicago regional soils and water affected by coal-based industry. Since the award was made in 2010, the IES has been launched (fall 2013), and the IES acquired a new state-of-the-art research and education facility on Loyola University Chicagoâs Lakeshore campus. Two labs were included in the research and education facility. The second floor lab is the Ecology Laboratory where lab experiments and analyses are conducted on soil, plant, and water samples. The third floor lab is the Environmental Toxicology Lab where lab experiments on environmental toxins are conducted, as well as analytical tests conducted on water, soil, and plants. On the south end of the Environmental Toxicology Lab is the analytical instrumentation collection purchased from the present DOE grant, which is overseen by a full time Analytical Chemist (hired January 2016), who maintains the instruments, conducts analyses on samples, and helps to train faculty and undergraduate and graduate student researchers.

This paper describes an experimental evaluation of anaerobic digestion technology as an option for the management of organic solid waste in developing countries. As raw material, a real and heterogeneous organic waste from urban solid wastes was used. In the first experimental phase, seed selection was achieved through an evaluation of three different anaerobic sludges coming from wastewater treatment plants. The methanization potential of these sludges was assessed in three different batch digesters of 500 mL, at two temperature levels. The results showed that by increasing the temperature to 15 deg. C above room temperature, the methane production increases to three times. So, the best results were obtained in the digester fed with a mixed sludge, working at mesophilic conditions (38-40 deg. C). Then, this selected seed was used at the next experimental phase, testing at different digestion times (DT) of 25, 20 and 18 days in a bigger batch digester of 20 L with a reaction volume of 13 L. The conversion rates were registered at the lowest DT (18 days), reaching 44.9 L/kg{sup -1} of wet waste day{sup -1}. Moreover, DT also has a strong influence over COD removal, because there is a direct relationship between solids removal inside the reactor and DT.

This paper examines Beijing air quality in the winter and summer of 2001 using an integrated air quality modeling system (Fifth Generation Mesoscale Meteorological Model (MM5)/Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQ)) in nested mode. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Transport and Chemical Evolution over the Pacific (TRACE-P) emission inventory is used in the 36- (East Asia), 12- (East China), and 4-km (greater Beijing area) domains. Furthermore, we develop a local Beijing emission inventory that is used in the 4-km domain. We also construct a corroborated mapping of chemical species between the TRACE-P inventory and the Carbon Bond IV (CB-IV) chemical mechanism before the integrated modeling system is applied to study ozone (O{sub 3}) and particulate matter (PM) in Beijing. Meteorological data for the integrated modeling runs are extracted from MM5. Model results show O{sub 3} hourly concentrations in the range of 80-159 parts per billion (ppb) during summer in the urban areas and up to 189 ppb downwind of the city. High fine PM (PM2.5) concentrations (monthly average of 75 {mu}g.m{sup -3} in summer and 150 {mu}g.m{sup -3} in winter) are simulated over the metropolitan and down-wind areas with significant secondary constituents. Major sources of particulates were biomass burning, coal combustion and industry. A comparison against available O{sub 3} and PM measurement data in Beijing is described. We recommend refinements to the developed local Beijing emission inventory to improve the simulation of Beijing's air quality. The 4-km modeling configuration is also recommended for the development of air pollution control strategies. 31 refs., 5 figs., 3 tabs.

For nearly one decade, the German political and research-agenda has been to a large extent determined by the ongoing question of how to limit the expansion of settlement areas around cities in order to preserve natural resources, make settlement growth more sustainable and to strengthen the re-use of existing inner-urban areas (see a.o. Koetter et al. 2009a, 2010; Schetke et al. 2009, 2010b). What is already under discussion within the international literature are the recommendations of the German Council for Sustainability to quantitatively reduce the daily greenfield consumption from the current rate of over 100 ha per day to a rate of 30 ha per day in 2020 and to bring urban infill development up to a ratio of 3:1 with greenfield development (German Council for Sustainability, 2004).). This paper addresses the added value beyond those abstract political targets and presents an innovative, multi-criteria assessment (MCA) of greenfield and infill sites to evaluate their sustainability and resource efficiency. MCA development and its incorporation into a Decision Support System (DSS) were accomplished by utilising a stakeholder-driven approach. The resulting tool can be applied in preparing and revising land-use plans. The paper presents the concept and the development process of the MCA-DSS. Test runs with planners prove that the evaluation of potential housing sites using individually weighted environmental indicators helps to identify those strategies of housing development that accord most closely with sustainability goals. The tests further show that the development of greenfield sites generally exhibits less sustainability than that of infill sites. - Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer This paper presents an innovative, multi-criteria assessment (MCA) of greenfield and infill sites. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer The MCA evaluates sustainability and resource efficiency of potential housing sites in a stakeholder-driven approach. Black

The composition and morphology of colloidal materials entering an urban waterway (Brays Bayou, Houston, USA) during a storm event was investigated. Analyses of organic carbon, Si, Al, Fe, Cr, Cu, Mn, Zn, Ca, Mg, and Ba were performed on the fraction of materials passing through a 0.45 {micro}m filter. This fraction, traditionally defined as dissolved, was further fractionated by ultracentrifugation into colloidal and dissolved fractions. Colloids, operationally defined by this procedure, accounted for 17% of the carbon, 32% of the silica, 79% of the Al, 85% of the Fe, 52% of the Cr, 43% of the Mn, and 29% of the Zn present in filtrates when averaged over the storm event. However, the composition of colloidal material was observed to change over time. For example, colloids were predominantly composed of silica during periods of dry weather flow and at the maximum of the stormwater flow, while carbon dominated the colloidal fraction at the beginning and declining stages of the storm event. These changes in colloidal composition were accompanied by changes in colloidal morphologies, varying from organic aggregates to diffuse gel-like structures rich in Si, Al, and Fe. The colloidal phase largely determined the variability of elements in the 0.45 {micro}m filtrate.

There is an increasing need for a quick, simple method to represent diurnal population change in metropolitan areas for effective emergency management and risk analysis. Many geographic studies rely on decennial U.S. Census data that assume that urban populations are static in space and time. This has obvious limitations in the context of dynamic geographic problems. The U.S. Department of Transportation publishes population data at the transportation analysis zone level in fifteen-minute increments. This level of spatial and temporal detail allows for improved dynamic population modeling. This article presents a methodology for visualizing and analyzing diurnal population change for metropolitan areas based on this readily available data. Areal interpolation within a geographic information system is used to create twenty-four (one per hour) population surfaces for the larger metropolitan area of Salt Lake County, Utah. The resulting surfaces represent diurnal population change for an average workday and are easily combined to produce an animation that illustrates population dynamics throughout the day. A case study of using the method to visualize population distributions in an emergency management context is provided using two scenarios: a chemical release and a dirty bomb in Salt Lake County. This methodology can be used to address a wide variety of problems in emergency management.

The indoor atmosphere is an ecological unit that impacts on public health. To investigate the composition of organisms in this space, we applied culture-independent approaches to microbes harvested from the air of two densely populated urban buildings, from which we analyzed 80 megabases genomic DNA sequence and 6000 16S rDNA clones. The air microbiota is primarily bacteria, including potential opportunistic pathogens commonly isolated from human-inhabited environments such as hospitals, but none of the data contain matches to virulent pathogens or bioterror agents. Comparison of air samples with each other and nearby environments suggested that the indoor air microbes are not random transients from surrounding outdoor environments, but rather originate from indoor niches. Sequence annotation by gene function revealed specific adaptive capabilities enriched in the air environment, including genes potentially involved in resistance to desiccation and oxidative damage. This baseline index of air microbiota will be valuable for improving designs of surveillance for natural or man-made release of virulent pathogens.

Consumption of vegetables that are grown in urban areas takes place worldwide. In developing countries, vegetables are traditionally grown in urban areas for cheap food supply. In developing and developed countries, urban gardening is gaining momentum. A problem that arises with urban gardening is the presence of contaminants in soil, which can be taken up by vegetables. In this study, a scientifically-based and practical procedure has been developed for assessing the human health risks from the consumption of vegetables from cadmium-contaminated land. Starting from a contaminated site, the procedure follows a tiered approach which is laid out as follows. In Tier 0, the plausibility of growing vegetables is investigated. In Tier 1 soil concentrations are compared with the human health-based Critical soil concentration. Tier 2 offers the possibility for a detailed site-specific human health risk assessment in which calculated exposure is compared to the toxicological reference dose. In Tier 3, vegetable concentrations are measured and tested following a standardized measurement protocol. To underpin the derivation of the Critical soil concentrations and to develop a tool for site-specific assessment the determination of the representative concentration in vegetables has been evaluated for a range of vegetables. The core of the procedure is based on Freundlich-type plantsoil relations, with the total soil concentration and the soil properties as variables. When a significant plantsoil relation is lacking for a specific vegetable a geometric mean of BioConcentrationFactors (BCF) is used, which is normalized according to soil properties. Subsequently, a conservative vegetable-group-consumption-rate-weighted BioConcentrationFactor is calculated as basis for the Critical soil concentration (Tier 1). The tool to perform site-specific human health risk assessment (Tier 2) includes the calculation of a realistic worst case site-specific vegetable

The paper summarizes the results of an extensive study carried out for the UK Government. This assessed the cost and economic impact of technological innovation on subsea and floating developments in the UKCS. The study covered, innovations that could be applied to subsea developments to significantly reduce cost, including multiwell completions, composite pipelines, compartmented pipelines, pipeline specification breaking and autonomous control systems. Cost and economic models were used to assess the economic impact of technological innovation on marginal field developments. The results of these assessments were drawn up as a series of ranking lists designed to assist manufacturers and suppliers in establishing priorities for research and development funding. The study also explored the potential UKCS and World market for innovative subsea technologies and quantified the research and development required to bring key innovations into commercial use.

Convection-resolving ensemble simulations using the WRF-Chem model coupled with a single-layer Urban Canopy Model (UCM) are conducted to investigate the individual and combined impacts of land use and anthropogenic pollutant emissions from urbanization on a heavy rainfall event in the Greater Beijing Metropolitan Area (GBMA) in China. The simulation with the urbanization effect included generally captures the spatial pattern and temporal variation of the rainfall event. An improvement of precipitation is found in the experiment including aerosol effect on both clouds and radiation. The expanded urban land cover and increased aerosols have an opposite effect on precipitation processes, with the latter playing a more dominant role, leading to suppressed convection and rainfall over the upstream (northwest) area, and enhanced convection and more precipitation in the downstream (southeast) region of the GBMA. In addition, the influence of aerosol indirect effect is found to overwhelm that of direct effect on precipitation in this rainfall event. Increased aerosols induce more cloud droplets with smaller size, which favors evaporative cooling and reduce updrafts and suppress convection over the upstream (northwest) region in the early stage of the rainfall event. As the rainfall system propagates southeastward, more latent heat is released due to the freezing of larger number of smaller cloud drops that are lofted above the freezing level, which is responsible for the increased updraft strength and convective invigoration over the downstream (southeast) area.

The reports listed in this Overview summarize projects conducted through the Urban Consortium Energy Task Force by local government staff who have defined and implemented many of the energy strategies described above. Reports from their projects illustrate effective approaches to plan and implement these strategies, as well as software tools, surveys, and technical instruments valuable to other local government officials conducting similar projects.

Both planning and design of municipal solid waste management systems require accurate prediction of solid waste generation. Yet achieving the anticipated prediction accuracy with regard to the generation trends facing many fast-growing regions is quite challenging. The lack of complete historical records of solid waste quantity and quality due to insufficient budget and unavailable management capacity has resulted in a situation that makes the long-term system planning and/or short-term expansion programs intangible. To effectively handle these problems based on limited data samples, a new analytical approach capable of addressing socioeconomic and environmental situations must be developed and applied for fulfilling the prediction analysis of solid waste generation with reasonable accuracy. This study presents a new approach - system dynamics modeling - for the prediction of solid waste generation in a fast-growing urban area based on a set of limited samples. To address the impact on sustainable development city wide, the practical implementation was assessed by a case study in the city of San Antonio, Texas (USA). This area is becoming one of the fastest-growing regions in North America due to the economic impact of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The analysis presents various trends of solid waste generation associated with five different solid waste generation models using a system dynamics simulation tool - Stella[reg]. Research findings clearly indicate that such a new forecasting approach may cover a variety of possible causative models and track inevitable uncertainties down when traditional statistical least-squares regression methods are unable to handle such issues.

The current trend of industrialization and urbanization in developing nations has a huge impact on anthropogenic and natural ecosystems. Pollution sources increase with the expansion of cities and cause contamination of water, air and soil. The absence of urban environmental planning and management strategies has resulted in greater concern for future urbandevelopment. This paper advocates the adoption of strategic environmental assessment (SEA) as a means to achieve sustainable development in developing countries. It investigates project-level environmental impact assessment (EIA) and its limitations. The exploration of SEA and its features are addressed. The effective implementation of SEA can create a roadmap for sustainable development. In many developing countries, the lack of transparency and accountability and ineffective public participation in the development of the policy, plan and program (PPP) would be mitigated by the SEA process. Moreover, the proactive and broadly based characteristics of SEA would benefit the institutional development of the PPP process, which is rarely experienced in many developing countries. The paper also explores the prospects for SEA and its guiding principles in developing countries. Finally, the paper calls for a coordinated effort between all government, nongovernment and international organizations involved with PPPs to enable developing countries to pursue a path of sustainable development through the development and application of strategic environmental assessment.

In recess since November 22, Congress will not reconvene until January 23. Its first priority upon returning to work is the FY 91 budget. Preliminary reports have indicated the Special Isotopic Separator (SIS) program the Defense Department funds at Lawrence Livermore National Lab. may receive a reduction in funding. If Congress enacts the cut, it may affect the AVLIS research program, which is also conducted at the Lab.

CFC powerplants offer the potential for ultrahigh efficiency energy conversion and the enhancement of the quality of our environment. Since combustion is not utilized, CFCs generate very low amounts of NOx. CFC powerplants have been exempt from air permitting requirements in California, Massachusetts. CFC is attractive for both polluted urban areas and remote applications. It is ideal as a distributed generator (sited at or near the electricity user). The US CFC developers enjoy the support of user groups (utility, other end-user members). DOE cooperates with GRI and EPRI in funding the US CFC program.

This report presents a survey and initial assessment of the existing state-of-the-art melter technology necessary to thermally treat (stabilize) buried TRU waste, by producing a highly leach resistant glass/ceramic waste form suitable for final disposal. Buried mixed transuranic (TRU) waste at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) represents an environmental hazard requiring remediation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed the INEL on the National Priorities List in 1989. Remediation of the buried TRU-contaminated waste via the CERCLA decision process is required to remove INEL from the National Priorities List. A Waste Technology Development (WTD) Preliminary Systems Design and Thermal Technologies Screening Study identified joule-heated and plasma-heated melters as the most probable thermal systems technologies capable of melting the INEL soil and waste to produce the desired final waste form (Iron-Enriched Basalt (IEB) glass/ceramic). The work reported herein then surveys the state of existing melter technology and assesses it within the context of processing INEL buried TRU wastes and contaminated soils. Necessary technology development work is recommended.

This report presents a survey and initial assessment of the existing state-of-the-art melter technology necessary to thermally treat (stabilize) buried TRU waste, by producing a highly leach resistant glass/ceramic waste form suitable for final disposal. Buried mixed transuranic (TRU) waste at the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory (INEL) represents an environmental hazard requiring remediation. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) placed the INEL on the National Priorities List in 1989. Remediation of the buried TRU-contaminated waste via the CERCLA decision process is required to remove INEL from the National Priorities List. A Waste Technology Development (WTD) Preliminary Systems Design and Thermal Technologies Screening Study identified joule-heated and plasma-heated melters as the most probable thermal systems technologies capable of melting the INEL soil and waste to produce the desired final waste form [Iron-Enriched Basalt (IEB) glass/ceramic]. The work reported herein then surveys the state of existing melter technology and assesses it within the context of processing INEL buried TRU wastes and contaminated soils. Necessary technology development work is recommended.

The Port Hope Project is part of the larger CAN$1.28 billion Port Hope Area Initiative (PHAI), a community-based program for the development and implementation of a safe, local, long-term management solution for historic Low-Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW) in the Municipalities of Port Hope and Clarington, Ontario, Canada. Atomic Energy of Canada (AECL) is the Project Proponent, Public Works and Government Services (PWGSC) is managing the procurement of services and the MMM Group Limited - Conestoga Rovers and Associates Joint Venture (MMM-CRA Joint Venture) is providing detailed design and construction oversight and administration services for the Project. The Port Hope Project includes the construction of a long-term waste management facility (LTWMF) in the Municipality of Port Hope and the remediation of 18 (eighteen) large-scale LLRW, numerous small-scale sites still being identified and industrial sites within the Municipality. The total volume to be remediated is over one million cubic metres and will come from sites that include temporary storage sites, ravines, beaches, parks, private commercial and residential properties and vacant industrial sites all within the urban area of Port Hope. Challenges that will need to be overcome during this 10 year project include: - Requirements stipulated by the Environmental Assessment (EA) that affect Project logistics and schedule. - Coordination of site remediation with the construction schedule at the LTWMF. - Physical constraints on transport routes and at sites affecting production rates. - Despite being an urban undertaking, seasonal constrains for birds and fish (i.e., nesting and spawning seasons). - Municipal considerations. - Site-specific constraints. - Site interdependencies exist requiring consideration in the schedule. Several sites require the use of an adjacent site for staging. (authors)

An urban strategist looks at the patterns of urban energy use through history and offers a blueprint for urban survival in a resource-conscious age. Morris follows the evolution of American cities from self-sufficient frontier villages to compact city cores, which vanished when the automobile created suburban towns without centers, separated home from workplace, and removed the production of goods from their consumption. Transmission of electricity at nominal cost brought energy across increasing distances for energy-hungry consumers. Since the 1973 oil embargo, communities have faced the twin problems of rising energy costs and deepening resource shortages. Morris envisions a near-future city where production and consumption are closely linked and where the wastes of one process are the raw materials of another. 87 references, 4 figures, 3 tables.

The U.S. Departments of Energy and Housing and UrbanDevelopment have partnered with the U.S. Department of Education to build human capital and continue significant investments in infrastructure upgrades and energy retrofits to conserve resources. This program is an innovative place-based initiative to create economic opportunity and energy-literate communities, including energy literacy, STEM education, and job-driven skills training.

Highlights: ? Five drivers led developed countries to current solid waste management paradigm. ? Many unique factors challenge developing country solid waste management. ? Limited transferability of developed country approaches to developing countries. ? High uncertainties and decision stakes call for post-normal approaches. ? Systems thinking needed for multi-scale, self-organizing eco-social waste systems. - Abstract: Solid waste management (SWM) has become an issue of increasing global concern as urban populations continue to rise and consumption patterns change. The health and environmental implications associated with SWM are mounting in urgency, particularly in the context of developing countries. While systems analyses largely targeting well-defined, engineered systems have been used to help SWM agencies in industrialized countries since the 1960s, collection and removal dominate the SWM sector in developing countries. This review contrasts the history and current paradigms of SWM practices and policies in industrialized countries with the current challenges and complexities faced in developing country SWM. In industrialized countries, public health, environment, resource scarcity, climate change, and public awareness and participation have acted as SWM drivers towards the current paradigm of integrated SWM. However, urbanization, inequality, and economic growth; cultural and socio-economic aspects; policy, governance, and institutional issues; and international influences have complicated SWM in developing countries. This has limited the applicability of approaches that were successful along the SWM development trajectories of industrialized countries. This review demonstrates the importance of founding new SWM approaches for developing country contexts in post-normal science and complex, adaptive systems thinking.

ANALYSIS SECTION Multi-Year Research, Development, and Demonstration Plan Page 4.0 - 1 4.0 Systems Analysis The Fuel Cell Technologies Office (The Office) conducts a coordinated, comprehensive effort in modeling and analysis to clarify where hydrogen and fuel cells can be most effective from an economic, environmental, and energy security standpoint, as well as to guide RD&D priorities and set program goals. These activities support the Office's decision-making process by evaluating

Modernizing our electric power grid has long been a key priority for the Department of Energy, and this month the Department is moving forward on that front with a series of announcements related to our ongoing Grid Modernization Initiative. As part of that effort, the Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability announced approximately $23 million in funding for the research and development of advanced cybersecurity technologies to meet the unique requirements of the energy sector.

Department of Energy Urban Electric Power Takes Energy Storage from Startup to Grid-Scale Urban Electric Power Takes Energy Storage from Startup to Grid-Scale June 25, 2013 - 12:42pm Addthis Learn how the CUNY Energy Institute is creating safe, low cost, rechargeable, long lifecycle batteries that could be used to store renewable energy. | Video courtesy of the Energy Department. Alexa McClanahan Communications Support Contractor to ARPA-E What are the key facts? The CUNY Energy Institute

Alkane hydrocarbons (propane, isobutane, and n-butane) from liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) are present in major quantities throughout Mexico City air because of leakage of the unburned gas from numerous urban sources. These hydrocarbons, together with olefinic minor LPG components, furnish substantial amounts of hydroxyl radical reactivity, a major precursor to formation of the ozone component of urban smog. The combined processes of unburned leakage and incomplete combustion of LPG play significant role in causing the excessive ozone characteristic of Mexico City. Reductions in ozone levels should be possible through changes in LPG composition and lowered rates of leakage. 23 refs., 3 tabs.

Economic Development Economic Development Los Alamos is committed to investing and partnering in economic development initiatives and programs that have a positive impact to stimulate business growth that creates jobs and strengthens communities in Northern New Mexico. September 20, 2013 R&M Construction from Santa Clara Pueblo is a 2015 Native American Venture Acceleration Fund recipient. R&M Construction from Santa Clara Pueblo is a 2015 Native American Venture Acceleration Fund

This presentation covers how to go about developing a human reliability program. In particular, it touches on conceptual thinking, raising awareness in an organization, the actions that go into developing a plan. It emphasizes evaluating all positions, eliminating positions from the pool due to mitigating factors, and keeping the process transparent. It lists components of the process and objectives in process development. It also touches on the role of leadership and the necessity for audit.

Seattle Steam Company provides thermal energy service (steam) to the majority of buildings and facilities in downtown Seattle, including major hospitals (Swedish and Virginia Mason) and The Northwest (Level I) Regional Trauma Center. Seattle Steam has been heating downtown businesses for 117 years, with an average length of service to its customers of 40 years. In 2008 and 2009 Seattle Steam developed a biomass-fueled renewable energy (bio-energy) system to replace one of its gas-fired boilers that will reduce greenhouse gases, pollutants and the amount of waste sent to landfills. This work in this sub-project included several distinct tasks associated with the biomass project development as follows: a. Engineering and Architecture: Engineering focused on development of system control strategies, development of manuals for start up and commissioning. b. Training: The project developer will train its current operating staff to operate equipment and facilities. c. Flue Gas Clean-Up Equipment Concept Design: The concept development of acid gas emissions control system strategies associated with the supply wood to the project. d. Fuel Supply Management Plan: Development of plans and specifications for the supply of wood. It will include potential fuel sampling analysis and development of contracts for delivery and management of fuel suppliers and handlers. e. Integrated Fuel Management System Development: Seattle Steam requires a biomass Fuel Management System to track and manage the delivery, testing, processing and invoicing of delivered fuel. This application will be web-based and accessed from a password-protected URL, restricting data access and privileges by user-level.

The concepts undergirding a funded program to develop a modular electromechanical battery (EMB) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory are described. Example parameters for EMBs for electric and hybrid-electric vehicles are given, and the importance of the high energy recovery efficiency of EMBs in increasing vehicle range in urban driving is shown.

The Department of Energy commissioned this roadmap to establish a set of high-priority research and development (R&D) activities that will accelerate the transition to low-GWP refrigerants across the entire heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) industry. The schedule of R&D activities occurs within an accelerated five-year timeframe, and covers several prominent equipment types. The roadmap is organized around four primary objectives to: assess and mitigate safety risks, characterize refrigerant properties, understand efficiency and environmental tradeoffs, and support new refrigerant and equipment development.

This paper describes work in progress toward an urban-scale system aiming to reduce energy use in neighboring buildings by providing three components: a database for accessing past and present weather data from high quality weather stations; a network for communicating energy-saving strategies between building owners; and a set of modeling tools for real-time building energy simulation.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture is accepting proposals for the National Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Cost Share Grant Program to assist the U.S. Forest Service in establishing the grant categories and recommendations of final proposals for the Forest Service to consider.

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has been researching the application of solid-oxide electrolysis cells for large-scale hydrogen production from steam over a temperature range of 800 to 900ÂºC. From 2003 â 2009, this work was sponsored by the DOE Nuclear Hydrogen Initiative (NHI). Starting in 2010, the HTE research program has been sponsored by the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP) program. HTSE research priorities in FY10 are centered on understanding and reducing cell and stack performance degradation to an acceptable level to advance the technology readiness level of HTSE and to justify further large-scale demonstration activities. This report provides a summary of our FY10 experimental program, which has been focused on advanced cell and stack development and degradation studies. Advanced cell and stack development activities are under way at five technology partners: MSRI, Versa Power, Ceramatec, NASA Glenn, and St. Gobain. Performance evaluation of the advanced technology cells and stacks has been performed by the technology partners, by MIT and the University of Connecticut and at the INL HTE Laboratory. Summaries of these development activities and test results are presented.

The two main forcings that can counteract to some extent the positive forcings from greenhouse gases from pre-industrial times to present-day are the aerosol and related aerosol-cloud forcings, and the radiative response to changes in surface albedo. Here, we quantify the change in radiative forcing and land surface temperature that may be obtained by increasing the albedos of roofs and pavements in urban areas in temperate and tropical regions of the globe by 0.1. Using the catchment land surface model (the land model coupled to the GEOS-5 Atmospheric General Circulation Model), we quantify the change in the total outgoing (outgoing shortwave+longwave) radiation and land surface temperature to a 0.1 increase in urban albedos for all global land areas. The global average increase in the total outgoing radiation was 0.5 Wm{sup -2}, and temperature decreased by {approx}0.008 K for an average 0.003 increase in surface albedo. These averages represent all global land areas where data were available from the land surface model used and are for the boreal summer (June-July-August). For the continental U.S. the total outgoing radiation increased by 2.3 Wm{sup -2}, and land surface temperature decreased by {approx}0.03 K for an average 0.01 increase in surface albedo. Based on these forcings, the expected emitted CO{sub 2} offset for a plausible 0.25 and 0.15 increase in albedos of roofs and pavements, respectively, for all global urban areas, was found to be {approx} 57 Gt CO{sub 2}. A more meaningful evaluation of the impacts of urban albedo increases on global climate and the expected CO{sub 2} offsets would require simulations which better characterizes urban surfaces and represents the full annual cycle.

Acoustic sensing systems are critical elements in detection of sniper events. The microphones developed in this project enable unique sensing systems that benefit significantly from the enhanced sensitivity and extremely compact foot-print. Surface and bulk micromachining technologies developed at Sandia have allowed the design, fabrication and characterization of these unique sensors. We have demonstrated sensitivity that is only available in 1/2 inch to 1 inch studio reference microphones--with our devices that have only 1 to 2mm diameter membranes in a volume less than 1cm{sup 3}.

Urbanization results in pervasive habitat fragmentation and reduces standing genetic variation through bottlenecks and drift. Loss of genomewide variation may ultimately reduce the evolutionary potential of animal populations experiencing rapidly changing conditions. In this study, we examined genomewide variation among 23 white-footed mouse (Peromyscus leucopus) populations sampled along an urbanization gradient in the New York City metropolitan area. Genomewide variation was estimated as a proxy for evolutionary potential using more than 10000 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) markers generated by ddRAD-Seq. We found that genomewide variation is inversely related to urbanization as measured by percent impervious surface cover, and to amoreÂ Â» lesser extent, human population density. We also report that urbanization results in enhanced genomewide differentiation between populations in cities. There was no pattern of isolation by distance among these populations, but an isolation by resistance model based on impervious surface significantly explained patterns of genetic differentiation. Isolation by environment modeling also indicated that urban populations deviate much more strongly from global allele frequencies than suburban or rural populations. Lastly, this study is the first to examine loss of genomewide SNP variation along an urban-to-rural gradient and quantify urbanization as a driver of population genomic patterns.Â«Â less

Models to estimate pollution dispersion and wind flow in cities (both at the city-scale and above) require a parametrical description of the urban canopy. For instance, two key parameters are the aerodynamic roughness length z{sub 0} and the zero-plane displacement height z{sub d}, which are related, amongst others, to the surface drag coefficient, the scale and intensity of turbulence, the depth of the roughness sub-layer and the wind speed profile. The calculation of z{sub 0} and z{sub d}, however, is not straightforward. The classical way to estimate them in open terrain is based on the measurement of wind profile data from a tall mast or, less accurately, on the inference from published roughness values for similar terrain elsewhere (Davenport, 1960; Davenport et al., 2000). Both methods, however, are very difficult to apply to cities, due to the considerable height where wind measurements should be taken (well above the urban canopy) and to the irregularities of urban texture. A promising alternative that has become available in recent years, due to increasing computing resources and the availability of high-resolution 3-D databases in urban areas, is based on the calculation of z{sub 0} and z{sub d} from the analysis and measure of the city geometry (urban morphometry). This method is reviewed for instance in Grimmond and Oke (1999), where values are calculated using different formulas and then compared with the results of field measurements. Urban morphometry opens up a new range of parameters that can easily be calculated in urban areas and used as input for meso-scale and urban dispersion models. This paper reviews a number of them and shows how they could be calculated from urban Digital Elevation Models (DEM) using image-processing techniques. It builds up on the recent work by Ratti et al. 2000, extending the number of case studies cities: London, Toulouse, Berlin, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles.

Because SEED will provide a common, open-source data framework, software developers will be able to write applications that access the data in a consistent way (with proper permissions), or build functionalities onto the SEED platform in a replicable way.

DOE's Leadership & Development Programs are designed to strengthen the participantâs capacity to lead by deepening their understanding of the DOEâs core values and key leadership characteristics and behaviors, which is the foundation of our model for success.

An Environmental Questionnaire for the demonstration at the Bellefield Boiler Plant (BBP) was submitted to the national Energy Technology Laboratory. An R&D variance for the air permit at the BBP was sought from the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD). R&D variances for the solid waste permits at the J. A. Rutter Company (JARC), and Emery Tree Service (ETS) were sought from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (PADEP). Construction wood was acquired from Thompson Properties and Seven D Corporation. Verbal authorizations were received in all cases. Memoranda of understanding were executed by the University of Pittsburgh with BBP, JARC and ETS. Construction wood was collected from Thompson Properties and from Seven D Corporation. Forty tons of pallet and construction wood were ground to produce BioGrind Wood Chips at JARC and delivered to Mon Valley Transportation Company (MVTC). Five tons of construction wood were hammer milled at ETS and half of the product delivered to MVTC. Blends of wood and coal, produced at MVTC by staff of JARC and MVTC, were shipped by rail to BBP. The experimental portion of the project was carried out at BBP in late March and early April 2001. Several preliminary tests were successfully conducted using blends of 20% and 33% wood by volume. Four one-day tests using a blend of 40% wood by volume were then carried out. Problems of feeding and slagging were experienced with the 40% blend. Light-colored fly ash was observed coming from the stack during all four tests. Emissions of SO{sub 2}, NOx and total particulates, measured by Energy Systems Associates, decreased when compared with combusting coal alone. A procedure for calculating material and energy balances on BBP's Boiler No.1 was developed, using the results of an earlier compliance test at the plant. Material and energy balances were then calculated for the four test periods. Boiler efficiency was found to decrease slightly when the fuel was shifted from coal

Potential environmental effects of offshore wind (OSW) energy projects are not well understood, and regulatory agencies are required to make decisions in spite of substantial uncertainty about environmental impacts and their long-term consequences. An understanding of risks associated with interactions between OSW installations and aquatic receptors, including animals, habitats, and ecosystems, can help define key uncertainties and focus regulatory actions and scientific studies on interactions of most concern. To examine the environmental risks associated with OSW developments in the U.S. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) focused on the following four priority research areas in FY 2012: â¢ Environmental Risk Evaluation System (ERES) - Followed project developments on the two OSW projects that PNNL screened in FY 2011 for environmental consequence: Fishermenâs Energy off the coast of Atlantic City, NJ and LEEDCo. near Cleveland, OH in Lake Erie. â¢ Tethys - Developed a smart knowledge base which houses environmental research, data and information pertaining to OSW energy: â¢ Technical Assessment - Produced a new software to create an automated process of identifying and differentiating between flying organism such as birds and bats by using thermal imagery; and â¢ North Atlantic Right Whales - Developed an environmental risk management system to mitigate the impacts on North Atlantic Right Whales (NARW) during installation and piledriving stages of OSW developments. By identifying and addressing the highest priority environmental risks for OSW devices and associated installations the ERES process assists project proponents, regulators, and stakeholders to engage in the most efficient and effective siting and permitting pathways.

In 1976, under section 4(e) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), the US Congress created the TSCA Interagency Testing Committee (ITC) to decide which chemicals should be recommended to the Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency for testing. In 1988, under the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (CEPA), the Government of Canada created the Domestic Substances List and Priority Substances List. This paper briefly describes the ITC, the different ITC testing decisions and a few of the ITC`s 11,150 testing decisions for the 21,413 chemicals on the CEPA Domestic Substances List and some of the 24 testing decisions for the 44 chemicals and chemical groups on the CEPA.

Cloud and Aerosol Characterization for the ARM Central Facility: Multiple Remote Sensor Techniques Development K. Sassen Department of Meteorology University of Utah Salt lake City, UT 84112 overcome the poor data-handling capabilities that handi- capped multiple-channellidar studies in the past. The true diversity of transmitted and received polarization states of our system is illustrated at the bottom of Table 1. Note that the first full POL field tests will be made at the upcoming 1991

The sustainability of urban environments is an important issue at both local and international scales. Indicators are frequently used by decision-makers seeking to improve urban performance but these metrics can be dependent on sparse quantitative data. This paper explores the potential of an alternative approach, using an internet search engine to quickly gather qualitative data on the key attributes of cities. The method is applied to 21 world cities and the results indicate that, while the technique does shed light on direct and indirect aspects of sustainability, the validity of derived metrics as objective indicators of long-term sustainability is questionable. However the method's ability to provide subjective short-term assessments is more promising and it could therefore play an important role in participatory policy exercises such as public consultations. A number of promising technical improvements to the method's performance are also highlighted.

Deteriorating urban air quality ranks as a top concern worldwide, since air pollution adversely affects both public health and the environment. The outlook for improving air quality in the world`s megacities need not be bleak, however, The use of natural gas as a transportation fuel can measurably reduce urban pollution levels, mitigating chronic threats to health and the environment. Besides being clean burning, natural gas vehicles (NGVs) are economical to operate and maintain. The current cost of natural gas is lower than that of gasoline. Natural gas also reduces the vehicle`s engine wear and noise level, extends engine life, and decreases engine maintenance. Today, about 700,000 NGVs operate worldwide, the majority of them converted from gasoline or diesel fuel. This article discusses the economic, regulatory and technological issues of concern to the NGV industry.

This paper describes experimental results from a live-fire data collect designed to demonstrate the ability of IR and acoustic sensing systems to detect and map high-volume gunfire events from tactical UAVs. The data collect supports an exploratory study of the FightSight concept in which an autonomous UAV-based sensor exploitation and decision support capability is being proposed to provide dynamic situational awareness for large-scale battalion-level firefights in cluttered urban environments. FightSight integrates IR imagery, acoustic data, and 3D scene context data with prior time information in a multi-level, multi-step probabilistic-based fusion process to reliably locate and map the array of urban firing events and firepower movements and trends associated with the evolving urban battlefield situation. Described here are sensor results from live-fire experiments involving simultaneous firing of multiple sub/super-sonic weapons (2-AK47, 2-M16, 1 Beretta, 1 Mortar, 1 rocket) with high optical and acoustic clutter at ranges up to 400m. Sensor-shooter-target configurations and clutter were designed to simulate UAV sensing conditions for a high-intensity firefight in an urban environment. Sensor systems evaluated were an IR bullet tracking system by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and an acoustic gunshot detection system by Planning Systems, Inc. (PSI). The results demonstrate convincingly the ability for the LLNL and PSI sensor systems to accurately detect, separate, and localize multiple shooters and the associated shot directions during a high-intensity firefight (77 rounds in 5 sec) in a high acoustic and optical clutter environment with no false alarms. Preliminary fusion processing was also examined that demonstrated an ability to distinguish co-located shooters (shooter density), range to <0.5 m accuracy at 400m, and weapon type.

This project is composed of two sections. The first section describes dry weather toxicity surveys to evaluate the distribution of toxicity in the waters of San Francisco Bay and adjacent wetland habitat, and the second is a series of wet weather toxicity studies with emphasis on a marsh receiving urban runoff. The dry weather studies are reported in the appendices, while the wet weather work comprises the main report.

In the western United States, more than 30,500 square miles has been converted to irrigated agriculture and urban areas. This study compares the climate responses of four regional climate models (RCMs) to these past land-use changes. The RCMs used two contrasting land cover distributions: potential natural vegetation, and modern land cover that includes agriculture and urban areas. Three of the RCMs represented irrigation by supplementing soil moisture, producing large decreases in August mean (-2.5 F to -5.6 F) and maximum (-5.2 F to -10.1 F) 2-meter temperatures where natural vegetation was converted to irrigated agriculture. Conversion to irrigated agriculture also resulted in large increases in relative humidity (9 percent 36 percent absolute change). Only one of the RCMs produced increases in summer minimum temperature. Converting natural vegetation to urban land cover produced modest but discernable climate effects in all models, with the magnitude of the effects dependent upon the preexisting vegetation type. Overall, the RCM results indicate that land use change impacts are most pronounced during the summer months, when surface heating is strongest and differences in surface moisture between irrigated land and natural vegetation are largest. The irrigation effect on summer maximum temperatures is comparable in magnitude (but opposite in sign) to predicted future temperature change due to increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.

In order to determine the polluting atmospheric sources in urban and background areas source apportionment of the air particulate matter is necessary. Hitherto these studies were mostly based on bulk composition measurements of the aerosol. Source profiles, i.e. the concentrations of several elements for air particulate matter originating from one source, can be deduced from the receptor data using a number of multivariate techniques among which the chemical mass balance. The application is limited by the large number of observations that must be made for each of the variables. Often an elaborated sample preparation is necessary for fractionating the sample into several sub samples, according to the density, particle diameter or other relevant properties. Often this may results in poorly resolved source profiles. The aim of the present work is to find the relative abundance of the particle types originating from two different background monitoring stations in the middle of the Great Hungarian Plain. In urban areas most pollutants originate from traffic and municipal waste incineration. Since heavy metals play an important role in these samples the highly sensitive x-ray microscope (XRM) of the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS) of the Brookhaven National Laboratory was used. A feasibility study on individual aerosol particles sampled at the above background stations and in the urban area of Budapest is discussed.

Highlights: âº The semiconductor layer on thin-film photovoltaic modules can be removed from the glass-plate by vacuum blast cleaning. âº The separation of blasting agent and semiconductor can be performed using flotation with a valuable yield of 55%. âº PV modules are a promising source for the recovery of tellurium in the future. - Abstract: Raw material supply is essential for all industrial activities. The use of secondary raw material gains more importance since ore grade in primary production is decreasing. Meanwhile urban stock contains considerable amounts of various elements. Photovoltaic (PV) generating systems are part of the urban stock and recycling technologies for PV thin film modules with CdTe as semiconductor are needed because cadmium could cause hazardous environmental impact and tellurium is a scarce element where future supply might be constrained. The paper describes a sequence of mechanical processing techniques for end-of-life PV thin film modules consisting of sandblasting and flotation. Separation of the semiconductor material from the glass surface was possible, however, enrichment and yield of valuables in the flotation step were non-satisfying. Nevertheless, recovery of valuable metals from urban stock is a viable method for the extension of the availability of limited natural resources.

To systematically manage the energy consumption of existing buildings, the government has to enforce greenhouse gas reduction policies. However, most of the policies are not properly executed because they do not consider various factors from the urban level perspective. Therefore, this study aimed to conduct a dynamic analysis of an urban-based low-carbon policy using system dynamics, with a specific focus on housing and green space. This study was conducted in the following steps: (i) establishing the variables of urban-based greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions; (ii) creating a stock/flow diagram of urban-based GHGs emissions; (iii) conducting an information analysis using the system dynamics; and (iv) proposing the urban-based low-carbon policy. If a combined energy policy that uses the housing sector (30%) and the green space sector (30%) at the same time is implemented, 2020 CO{sub 2} emissions will be 7.23 million tons (i.e., 30.48% below 2020 business-as-usual), achieving the national carbon emissions reduction target (26.9%). The results of this study could contribute to managing and improving the fundamentals of the urban-based low-carbon policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

This report identifies the most important results of a comparative analysis of household commercial energy use in Venezuelan urban cities. The use of modern fuels is widespread among all cities. Cooking consumes the largest share of urban household energy use. The survey documents no use of biomass and a negligible use of kerosene for cooking. LPG, natural gas, and kerosene are the main fuels available. LPG is the fuel choice of low-income households in all cities except Maracaibo, where 40% of all households use natural gas. Electricity consumption in Venezuela`s urban households is remarkably high compared with the levels used in households in comparable Latin American countries and in households of industrialized nations which confront harsher climatic conditions and, therefore, use electricity for water and space heating. The penetration of appliances in Venezuela`s urban households is very high. The appliances available on the market are inefficient, and there are inefficient patterns of energy use among the population. Climate conditions and the urban built form all play important roles in determining the high level of energy consumption in Venezuelan urban households. It is important to acknowledge the opportunities for introducing energy efficiency and conservation in Venezuela`s residential sector, particularly given current economic and financial constraints, which may hamper the future provision of energy services.

In recent years, many rural Third World communities have suffered from the gradual degradation of the natural resources on which they depend. The Kilenge of the West New Britain, Papua New Guinea, offer such an example. The paper examines some of the nutritional, economic, social, and political impacts of these changes on the individual, on the household, and on the community in one Kilenge village. It argues that there may be alternatives to dependent development for this community. It concludes that redirected priorities can assist indigenous communities like Kilenge to achieve sustainable self-directed economic improvement.

This is the fifth in a series of reports to document the use of a methodology developed by the Pacific Northwest Laboratory to calculate, for prioritization purposes, the risk, dose and cost impacts of implementing resolutions to reactor safety issues (NUREG/CR-2800, Andrews et al. 1983). This report contains results of issue-specific analyses for 23 issues. Each issue was considered within the constraints of available information as of winter 1986, and two staff-weeks of labor. The results are referenced, as one consideration in setting priorities for reactor safety issues, in NUREG-0933, ''A Prioritization of Generic Safety Issues.''

Energy Optimization Model Development & Energy Audits U.S. DOE - Tribal Energy Program - 11/14/12 2 12/13/2012 where is it? Overview âº Reservation size of 65,430 acres (roughly 8 x 12 miles) with Oneida ownership of approximately 24,173 acres âº Membership of 16,877 with 7,360 members living on the Reservation or in immediate area âº Repurchase and restoration of lands a priority since casino started in 1993 âº Surburban sprawl from Green Bay and rising land prices Energy Team âº

This presentation proposes proposes that environmental justice and sustainable development represent the most significant challenges facing environmental professionals during the next 20 years. It will explore the linkages and tensions between these two emerging fields of research and application, as well as their implications for the environmental professions. Questions addressed will include: (1) What is the conceptual link between these ideas? (2) If cost-benefit analysis, taking, and unfunded mandates are the Republican Congress`s top environmental priorities, what do these issues mean from the perspectives of environmental justice and sustainability? (3) What do the justice and sustainability perspectives imply for the future direction of environmental research and advocacy?

Pacific Northwest Laboratory has developed a methodology, with examples, to calculate - to an approximation serviceable for prioritization purposes - the risk, dose and cost impacts of implementing resolutions to reactor safety issues. This report is an applications guide to issue-specific calculations. A description of the approach, mathematical models, worksheets and step-by-step examples are provided. Analysis using this method is intended to provide comparable results for many issues at a cost of two staff-weeks per issue. Results will be used by the NRC to support decisions related to issue priorities in allocation of resources to complete safety issue resolutions.

The I-710 and CA-60 highways are key transportation corridors in the Southern California region that are heavily used on a daily basis by heavy duty drayage trucks that transport the cargo from the ports to the inland transportation terminals. These terminals, which include store/warehouses, inland-railways, are anywhere from 5 to 50 miles in distance from the ports. The concentrated operation of these drayage vehicles in these corridors has had and will continue to have a significant impact on the air quality in this region whereby significantly impacting the quality of life in the communities surrounding these corridors. To reduce these negative impacts it is critical that zero and near-zero emission technologies be developed and deployed in the region. A potential local market size of up to 46,000 trucks exists in the South Coast Air Basin, based on near- dock drayage trucks and trucks operating on the I-710 freeway. The South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD), California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG) â the agencies responsible for preparing the State Implementation Plan required under the federal Clean Air Act â have stated that to attain federal air quality standards the region will need to transition to broad use of zero and near zero emission energy sources in cars, trucks and other equipment (Southern California Association of Governments et al, 2011). SCAQMD partnered with Volvo Trucks to develop, build and demonstrate a prototype Class 8 heavy-duty plug-in hybrid drayage truck with significantly reduced emissions and fuel use. Volvoâs approach leveraged the groupâs global knowledge and experience in designing and deploying electromobility products. The proprietary hybrid driveline selected for this proof of concept was integrated with multiple enhancements to the complete vehicle in order to maximize the emission and energy impact of electrification. A detailed review of all

The objective of this program has been the development of experimental techniques and data processing procedures to allow for the characterization of multi-phase fuel nozzles using laboratory tests. Test results were to be used to produce a single value coefficient-of-performance that would predict the performance of the fuel nozzles independent of system application. Several different types of fuel nozzles capable of handling multi-phase fuels have been characterized for: (a) fuel flow rate versus delivery pressure, (b) fuel-air ratio throughout the fuel spray or plume and the effective cone angle of the injector, and (c) fuel drop- or particle-size distribution as a function of fluid properties. Fuel nozzles which have been characterized on both single-phase liquids and multi-phase liquid-solid slurries include a variable-film-thickness nozzle, a commercial coal-water slurry (CWS) nozzle, and four diesel injectors of different geometries (tested on single-phase fluids only). Multi-phase mixtures includes CWS with various coal loadings, surfactant concentrations, and stabilizer concentrations, as well as glass-bead water slurries with stabilizing additives. Single-phase fluids included glycerol-water mixtures to vary the viscosity over a range of 1 to 1500 cP, and alcohol-water mixtures to vary the surface tension from about 22 to 73 dyne/cm. In addition, tests were performed to characterize straight-tube gas-solid nozzles using two differences size distributions of glass beads in air. Standardized procedures have been developed for processing measurements of spray drop-size characteristics and the overall cross-section average drop or particle size. 43 refs., 60 figs., 7 tabs.

In FY2013, the PIE International Safeguards team demonstrated our development progress to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) staff from the Office of Nonproliferation and International Security (NA-24, our client) and the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation Research and Development (NA-22). Following the demonstration, the team was asked by our client to complete additional development prior to a planned demonstration at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), scheduled tentatively for January or spring of 2014. The team discussed four potential areas for development (in priority order), and will develop them as time and funding permit prior to an IAEA demonstration. The four capability areas are: 1. Addition of equipment manuals to PIE-accessible files 2. Optical character recognition (OCR) of photographed text 3. Barcode reader with information look-up from a database 4. Add Facilities to Data Model 5. Geospatial capabilities with information integration Each area will be described below in a use case.

The aim of this work is to present the structure and the application of a decision support system (DSS) designed to help decision makers of a municipality in the development of incineration, disposal, treatment and recycling integrated programs. Specifically, within a MSW management system, several treatment plants and facilities can generally be found: separators, plants for production of refuse derived fuel (RDF), incinerators with energy recovery, plants for treatment of organic material, and sanitary landfills. The main goal of the DSS is to plan the MSW management, defining the refuse flows that have to be sent to recycling or to different treatment or disposal plants, and suggesting the optimal number, the kinds, and the localization of the plants that have to be active. The DSS is based on a decision model that requires the solution of a constrained non-linear optimization problem, where some decision variables are binary and other ones are continuous. The objective function takes into account all possible economic costs, whereas constraints arise from technical, normative, and environmental issues. Specifically, pollution and impacts, induced by the overall solid waste management system, are considered through the formalization of constraints on incineration emissions and on negative effects produced by disposal or other particular treatments.

This general article is based on the inaugural talk delivered at the opening of OMTAT 2013 conference. It notes that the integration of renewable energy sources into living and transport sectors presents a daunting task, still. In spite of the fact that the earth and its atmosphere continually receive 1.7 × 10{sup 17} watts of radiation from the sun, in the portfolio of sustainable and environment friendly energy options, which is about 16% of the worlds energy consumption and mostly met by biomass, only a paltry 0.04% is accredited to solar. First and second generation solar cells offer mature technologies for applications. The most important difficulty with regards to integration with structures is not only the additional cost, but also the lack of sufficient knowledge in managing the available energy smartly and efficiently. The incorporation of PV as a part of building fabric greatly reduces the overall costs compared with retrofitting. BIPV (Building Integrated photovoltaic) is a critical technology for establishing aesthetically pleasing solar structures. Infusing PV and building elements is greatly simplified with some of the second generation thin film technologies now manufactured as flexible panels. The same holds true for 3{sup rd} generation technologies under development such as, and dye- and quantum dot- sensitized solar cells. Additionally, these technologies offer transparent or translucent solar cells for incorporation into windows and skylights. This review deals with the present state of solar cell technologies suitable for BIPV and the status of BIPV applications and its future prospects.

The aim of this program is to contribute to certain facets of the development of the MHD/coal power system, and particularly the CDIF of DOE with regard to its flow train. Consideration is given specifically to the electrical power take-off, the diagnostic and instrumentation systems, the combustor and MHD channel technology, and electrode alternatives. Within the constraints of the program, high priorities were assigned to the problems of power take-off and the related characteristics of the MHD channel, and to the establishment of a non-intrusive, laser-based diagnostic system. The next priority was given to the combustor modeling and to a significantly improved analysis of particle combustion. Separate abstracts were prepared for nine of the ten papers included. One paper was previously included in the data base. (WHK)

Operators of critical processes, such as nuclear power production, must contend with highly complex systems, procedures, and regulations. Developing human-machine interfaces (HMIs) that better support operators is a high priority for ensuring the safe and reliable operation of critical processes. Human factors engineering (HFE) provides a rich and mature set of tools for evaluating the performance of HMIs, but the set of tools for developing and designing HMIs is still in its infancy. Here we propose that Microsoft Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is well suited for many roles in the research and development of HMIs for process control.

Investigations of the chemical characteristics of urban stormwater sediments in the rapidly growing Phoenix metropolitan area of Maricopa County, Arizona, showed that the inorganic component of these sediments generally reflects geologic background values. Some concentrations of metals were above background values, especially cadmium, copper, lead, and zinc, indicating an anthropogenic contribution of these elements to the sediment chemistry. Concentrations, however, were not at levels that would require soil remediation according to guidelines of the US Environmental Protection Agency. Arsenic concentrations generally were above recommended values for remediation at a few sites, but these concentrations seem to reflect geologic rather than anthropogenic factors. Several organochlorine compounds no longer in use were ubiquitous in the Phoenix area, although concentrations generally were low. Chlordane, DDT and its decay products DDE and DDD, dieldrin, toxaphene, and PCBs were found at almost all sites sampled, although some of the pesticides in which these compounds are found have been banned for almost 30 years. A few sites showed exceptionally high concentrations of organochlorine compounds. On the basis of published guidelines, urban stormwater sediments do not appear to constitute a major regional environmental problem with respect to the chemical characteristics investigated here. At individual sites, high concentrations of organic compounds--chlordane, dieldrin, PCBs, and toxaphene--may require some attention. The possible environmental hazard presented by low-level organochlorine contamination is not addresses in this paper; however, high levels of toxicity in urban sediments are difficult to explain. Sediment toxicity varied significantly with time, which indicates that these tests should be evaluated carefully before they are used for management decisions.

Microbial communities in aquatic environments are spatially and temporally dynamic due to environmental fluctuations and varied external input sources. A large percentage of the urban watersheds in the United States are affected by fecal pollution, including human pathogens, thus warranting comprehensive monitoring. Using a high-density microarray (PhyloChip), we examined water column bacterial community DNA extracted from two connecting urban watersheds, elucidating variable and stable bacterial subpopulations over a 3-day period and community composition profiles that were distinct to fecal and non-fecal sources. Two approaches were used for indication of fecal influence. The first approach utilized similarity of 503 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) common to all fecal samples analyzed in this study with the watershed samples as an index of fecal pollution. A majority of the 503 OTUs were found in the phyla Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, Bacteroidetes, and Actinobacteria. The second approach incorporated relative richness of 4 bacterial classes (Bacilli, Bacteroidetes, Clostridia and a-proteobacteria) found to have the highest variance in fecal and non-fecal samples. The ratio of these 4 classes (BBC:A) from the watershed samples demonstrated a trend where bacterial communities from gut and sewage sources had higher ratios than from sources not impacted by fecal material. This trend was also observed in the 124 bacterial communities from previously published and unpublished sequencing or PhyloChip- analyzed studies. This study provided a detailed characterization of bacterial community variability during dry weather across a 3-day period in two urban watersheds. The comparative analysis of watershed community composition resulted in alternative community-based indicators that could be useful for assessing ecosystem health.

Gas-to-particle partitioning of organic aerosols (OA) is represented in most models by Raoultâs law, and depends on the existing mass of particles into which organic gases can dissolve. This raises the possibility of non-linear response of particle-phase OA to the emissions of precursor volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that contribute to this partitioning mass. Implications for air quality management are evident: A strong non-linear dependence would suggest that reductions in VOC emission would have a more-than-proportionate benefit in lowering ambient OA concentrations. Chamber measurements on simple VOC mixtures generally confirm the non-linear scaling between OA and VOCs, usually stated as amoreÂ Â» mass-dependence of the measured OA yields. However, for realistic ambient conditions including urban settings, no single component dominates the composition of the organic particles, and deviations from linearity are presumed to be small. Here we re-examine the linearity question using volatility spectra from several sources: (1) chamber studies of selected aerosols, (2) volatility inferred for aerosols sampled in two megacities, Mexico City and Paris, and (3) an explicit chemistry model (GECKO-A). These few available volatility distributions suggest that urban OA may be only slightly super-linear, with most values of the sensitivity exponent in the range 1.1-1.3, also substantially lower than seen in chambers for some specific aerosols. Furthermore, the rather low values suggest that OA concentrations in megacities are not an inevitable convergence of non-linear effects, but can be addressed (much like in smaller urban areas) by proportionate reductions in emissions.Â«Â less

Gas-to-particle partitioning of organic aerosols (OA) is represented in most models by Raoultâs law, and depends on the existing mass of particles into which organic gases can dissolve. This raises the possibility of non-linear response of particle-phase OA to the emissions of precursor volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that contribute to this partitioning mass. Implications for air quality management are evident: A strong non-linear dependence would suggest that reductions in VOC emission would have a more-than-proportionate benefit in lowering ambient OA concentrations. Chamber measurements on simple VOC mixtures generally confirm the non-linear scaling between OA and VOCs, usually stated as a mass-dependence of the measured OA yields. However, for realistic ambient conditions including urban settings, no single component dominates the composition of the organic particles, and deviations from linearity are presumed to be small. Here we re-examine the linearity question using volatility spectra from several sources: (1) chamber studies of selected aerosols, (2) volatility inferred for aerosols sampled in two megacities, Mexico City and Paris, and (3) an explicit chemistry model (GECKO-A). These few available volatility distributions suggest that urban OA may be only slightly super-linear, with most values of the sensitivity exponent in the range 1.1-1.3, also substantially lower than seen in chambers for some specific aerosols. Furthermore, the rather low values suggest that OA concentrations in megacities are not an inevitable convergence of non-linear effects, but can be addressed (much like in smaller urban areas) by proportionate reductions in emissions.

One of the two prototype windmills is still being modified, and the final results are not yet in. Our original intent was to complete a four-year design effort so that the prototype Sailwing could be built by a do-it-yourselfer completely from off-the-shelf components. Once the design modifications were completed, we proposed to construct two mills - one at an urban community garden in Boston, the other at the Cape Code Bioshelter in Hatchville, Massachusetts. Plans for the machine would then be published and made available in several forms.

The study describes the results of a survey of 547 local water supply systems serving some 31 million residents of urban areas in the states of Alabama, California, Florida, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Wyoming. While examining the legal and administrative aspects of drought management, the survey also included the assessment of the current status of drought preparedness and long-term drought protection among the responding water supply systems. The rate of legal or administrative problems encountered during drought response was surprisingly low, affecting only twenty percent of all implementing systems. The low incidence of difficulties counters a widespread assumption that the legal environment frequently restrains or constricts drought response efforts.

A network of 23 weather stations was used to detect existing oases in Southern California. Four stations, separated from one another by 15--25 miles (24--40 km), were closely examined. Data were strongly affected by the distance of the stations from the Pacific Ocean. This and other city-scale effects made the network inadequate for detection of urban oases. We also conducted traverse measurements of temperature and humidity in the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area in Los Angeles County on September 8--10, 1993. Near-surface air temperatures over vegetated areas were 1--2{degrees}C lower than background air temperatures. We estimate that vegetation may lower urban temperatures by 1{degrees}C, while the establishment of vegetative canopies may lower local temperatures by an additional 2{degrees}C. An increase in vegetation in residential neighborhoods may reduce peak loads in the Los Angeles area by 0.3 GW, and reduce energy consumption by 0.2 BkWh/year, saving $20 million annually. Large additional savings would result from regional cooling.

A conceptual framework is presented for describing selected urban and community impacts of Federal energy policies. The framework depends on a simple causal model. The outputs of the model are impacts, changes in the state of the world of particular interest to policymakers. At any given time, a set of determinants account for the state of the world with respect to an impact category. Application of the model to a particular impact category requires: establishing a definition and measure for the impact category and identifying the determinants of these impacts. Analysis of the impact of a particular policy requires the following: identifying the policy and its effects (as estimated by others), isolating any effects that themselves constitute an urban and community impact, identifying any effects that change the value of determinants, and describing the impact with reference to the new values of determinants. This report provides a framework for these steps. Three impacts addressed are: neighborhood stability, housing availability, and quality and availability of public services. In each chapter, a definition and measure for the impact are specified; its principal determinants are identified; how the causal model can be used to estimate impacts by applying it to three illustrative Federal policies (domestic oil price decontrol, building energy performance standards, and increased Federal aid for mass transit) is demonstrated. (MCW)

The authors are attempting to simulate the transport and fate of pollutants through air and water pathways in an urban environment. This cross-disciplinary study involves linking together models of mesoscale meteorology, air pollution chemistry and deposition, urban runoff and stormwater transport, water quality, and wetland chemistry and biology. The authors are focusing on the transport and fate of nitrogen species because (1) they track through both air and water pathways, (2) the physics, chemistry, and biology of the complete cycle is not well understood, and (3) they have important health, local ecosystem, and global climate implications. The authors will apply their linked modeling system to the Los Angeles basin, following the fate of nitrates from their beginning as nitrate-precursors produced by auto emissions and industrial processes, tracking their dispersion and chemistry as they are transported by regional winds and eventually wet or dry deposit on the ground, tracing their path as they are entrained into surface water runoff during rain events and carried into the stormwater system, and then evaluating their impact on receiving water bodies such as wetlands where biologically-mediated chemical reactions take place. In this paper, the authors wish to give an overview of the project and at the conference show preliminary results.

The literature review and annotated bibliography contained in the document were first printed as two separate documents in 1986 at the beginning of a long-term research program titled the Puget Sound Wetlands and Stormwater Management Research Program. The review was conducted to determine the extent of information available on the long-term ecological impacts of stormwater on wetlands and, conversely, the ability of wetlands to improve the water quality of urban stormwater. The two reports have now been combined, and updated with the most recent literature. The revised report also briefly discusses the status of the Wetlands Research Program currently underway. The subject of the report is complex and diverse. For that reason the annotated bibliography in Part II contains references from the entire spectrum of wetland literature, including: urban runoff control technology, cumulative impacts, stormwater and wastewater treatment, functions and values, wetland creation, best management practices, and general wetland ecology. Most of the entrees contain abstracts. Where possible, the original author abstract or introduction was included.

Semipermeable polymeric membrane devices (SPMDS) were deployed for 30 day periods to monitor polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in an urban stream which receives much of its flow from urban runoff. SPMDs are capable of effectively sampling several liters of water per day for some PAHs. Unlike conventional methods, SPMDs sample only those non-polar organic contaminants which are truly dissolved and available for bioconcentration. Also, SPMDs may concentrate contaminants from episodic events such as stormwater discharge. The State of Wisconsin has established surface water quality criteria based upon human lifetime cancer risk of 23 ppt for benzo(a)pyrene and 23 ppt as the sum of nine other potentially carcinogenic PAHs. Bulk water samples analyzed by conventional methodology were routinely well above this criteria, but contained particulate bound PAHs as well as PAHs bound by dissolved organic carbon (DOC) which are not available for bioconcentration. Average water concentrations of dissolved PAHs determined using SPMDs were also above this criteria. Variables used for determining water concentration included sampling rate at the exposure temperature, length of exposure and estimation of biofouling of SPMD surface.

Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) production in air masses containing either anthropogenic or biogenic (terpene-dominated) emissions is investigated using the explicit gas-phase chemical mechanism generator GECKO-A. Simulations show several-fold increases in SOA mass continuing for multiple days in the urban outflow, even as the initial air parcel is diluted into the regional atmosphere. The SOA mass increase in the forest outflow is more modest (~50%) and of shorter duration (1â2 days). The multiday production in the urban outflow stems from continuing oxidation of gas-phase precursors which persist in equilibrium with the particle phase, and can be attributed to multigenerational reaction productsmoreÂ Â» of both aromatics and alkanes, especially those with relatively low carbon numbers (C4â15). In particular we find large contributions from substituted maleic anhydrides and multi-substituted peroxide-bicyclic alkenes. The results show that the predicted production is a robust feature of our model even under changing atmospheric conditions and different vapor pressure schemes, and contradict the notion that SOA undergoes little mass production beyond a short initial formation period. The results imply that anthropogenic aerosol precursors could influence the chemical and radiative characteristics of the atmosphere over an extremely wide region, and that SOA measurements near precursor sources may routinely underestimate this influence.Â«Â less

Secondary organic aerosol (SOA) production in air masses containing either anthropogenic or biogenic (terpene-dominated) emissions is investigated using the explicit gas-phase chemical mechanism generator GECKO-A. Simulations show several-fold increases in SOA mass continuing for several days in the urban outflow, even as the initial air parcel is diluted into the regional atmosphere. The SOA mass increase in the forest outflow is more modest (â¼50%) and of shorter duration (1â2 days). The production in the urban outflow stems from continuing oxidation of gas-phase precursors which persist in equilibrium with the particle phase, and can be attributed to multigenerational reaction products ofmoreÂ Â» both aromatics and alkanes. In particular we find large contributions from substituted maleic anhydrides and multi-substituted peroxide-bicyclic alkenes. The results show that the predicted production is a robust feature of our model even under changing atmospheric conditions, and contradict the notion that SOA undergoes little mass production beyond a short initial formation period. The results imply that anthropogenic aerosol precursors could influence the chemical and radiative characteristics of the atmosphere over an extremely wide region, and that SOA measurements near precursor sources may routinely underestimate this influence.Â«Â less

In case of a terrorist nuclear attack in a metropolitan area, EMP measurement could provide: (1) a prompt confirmation of the nature of the explosion (chemical or nuclear) for emergency response; and (2) and characterization parameters of the device (reaction history, yield) for technical forensics. However, urban environment could affect the fidelity of the prompt EMP measurement (as well as all other types of prompt measurement): (1) Nuclear EMP wavefront would no longer be coherent, due to incoherent production, attenuation, and propagation of gamma and electrons; and (2) EMP propagation from source region outward would undergo complicated transmission, reflection, and diffraction processes. EMP simulation for electrically-large urban environment: (1) Coupled MCNP/FDTD (Finite-difference time domain Maxwell solver) approach; and (2) FDTD tends to be limited to problems that are not 'too' large compared to the wavelengths of interest because of numerical dispersion and anisotropy. We use a higher-order low-dispersion, isotropic FDTD algorithm for EMP propagation.

The high rate of global urbanization has resulted in a rapid increase in informal settlements, which can be de ned as unplanned, unauthorized, and/or unstructured housing. Techniques for ef ciently mapping these settlement boundaries can bene t various decision making bodies. From a remote sensing perspective, informal settlements share unique spatial characteristics that distinguish them from other types of structures (e.g., industrial, commercial, and formal residential). These spatial characteristics are often captured in high spatial resolution satellite imagery. We analyzed the role of spatial, structural, and contextual features (e.g., GLCM, Histogram of Oriented Gradients, Line Support Regions, Lacunarity) for urban neighborhood mapping, and computed several low-level image features at multiple scales to characterize local neighborhoods. The decision parameters to classify formal-, informal-, and non-settlement classes were learned under Decision Trees and a supervised classi cation framework. Experiments were conducted on high-resolution satellite imagery from the CitySphere collection, and four different cities (i.e., Caracas, Kabul, Kandahar, and La Paz) with varying spatial characteristics were represented. Overall accuracy ranged from 85% in La Paz, Bolivia, to 92% in Kandahar, Afghanistan. While the disparities between formal and informal neighborhoods varied greatly, many of the image statistics tested proved robust.

During the last two decades, expanding industrial activity in east Asia has led to increased production of airborne pollutants that can be transported to North America. Previous efforts to detect this trans-Pacific pollution have relied upon remote sensing and remote sample locations. We tested whether Pb isotope ratios in airborne particles can be used to directly evaluate the Asian contribution to airborne particles of anthropogenic origin in western North America, using a time series of samples from a pair of sites upwind and downwind of the San Francisco Bay Area. Our results for airborne Pb at these sites indicate a median value of 29 Asian origin, based on mixing relations between distinct regional sample groups. This trans-Pacific Pb is present in small quantities but serves as a tracer for airborne particles within the growing Asian industrial plume. We then applied this analysis to archived samples from urban sites in central California. Taken together, our results suggest that the analysis of Pb isotopes can reveal the distribution of airborne particles affected by Asian industrial pollution at urban sites in northern California. Under suitable circumstances, this analysis can improve understanding of the global transport of pollution, independent of transport models.

GET Fit was first conceived in January 2010 when the United Nations Secretary General's Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC) invited Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors (DBCCA) to present new concepts to drive renewable energy investment in developing regions. DBCCA responded with the Global Energy Transfer Feed-in Tariffs Program (GET FiT), a proposal to support both renewable energy scale up and energy access through the creation of new international public-private partnerships. The concept was inspired by the theory that feed-in tariffs could serve as an effective policy structure for both public and private investment and knowledge transfer from the developed world. The original GET FiT concept was designed with input from over 160 individuals from the renewable energy, financial and international development communities. The original GET FiT report was issued in April 2010. This report reflects continued engagement of stakeholders around the world. GET FiT plus is an effort to capture the key outcomes of the GET FiT consultation process and use them to catalyze ongoing dialogue and debate about the future of international support for renewable energy in developing regions. These outcomes have been translated into key research priorities. These priorities, as well as some short issue briefs are part of this report.

The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, as amended (the Act), assigns the Federal Government the responsibility for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste. Section 302(a) of the Act authorizes the Secretary to enter into contracts with the owners and generators of commercial spent nuclear fuel and/or high-level waste. The Standard Contract for Disposal of Spent Nuclear Fuel and/or High-Level Radioactive Waste (Standard Contract) established the contractual mechanism for the Department's acceptance and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste. It includes the requirements and operational responsibilities of the parties to the Standard Contract in the areas of administrative matters, fees, terms of payment, waste acceptance criteria, and waste acceptance procedures. The Standard Contract provides for the acquisition of title to the spent nuclear fuel and/or high-level waste by the Department, its transportation to Federal facilities, and its subsequent disposal.

Energy Reclaimed Modern by Dwell Development DOE Tour of Zero: Reclaimed Modern by Dwell Development 1 of 19 Dwell Development built this 3,140-square-foot home in Seattle, Washington, to the performance criteria of the U.S. Department of Energy Zero Energy Ready Home (ZERH) program. 2 of 19 This three-story modern urban in-fill home achieved all of the certifications of the DOE Zero Energy Ready Home program as well as a 5-star rating from the Snohomish and King Co. Master Builders

simulations, on the other hand, are performed by numerical weather prediction (NWP) codes, which cannot handle the geometry of the urban landscape, but do provide a more complete representation of atmospheric physics. NWP codes typically use structured grids with terrain-following vertical coordinates, include a full suite of atmospheric physics parameterizations, and allow for dynamic synoptic scale lateral forcing through grid nesting. Terrain following grids are unsuitable for urban terrain, as steep terrain gradients cause extreme distortion of the computational cells. In this work, we introduce and develop an immersed boundary method (IBM) to allow the favorable properties of a numerical weather prediction code to be combined with the ability to handle complex terrain. IBM uses a non-conforming structured grid, and allows solid boundaries to pass through the computational cells. As the terrain passes through the mesh in an arbitrary manner, the main goal of the IBM is to apply the boundary condition on the interior of the domain as accurately as possible. With the implementation of the IBM, numerical weather prediction codes can be used to explicitly resolve urban terrain. Heterogeneous urban domains using the IBM can be nested into larger mesoscale domains using a terrain-following coordinate. The larger mesoscale domain provides lateral boundary conditions to the urban domain with the correct forcing, allowing seamless integration between mesoscale and urban scale models. Further discussion of the scope of this project is given by Lundquist et al. [2007]. The current paper describes the implementation of an IBM into the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, which is an open source numerical weather prediction code. The WRF model solves the non-hydrostatic compressible Navier-Stokes equations, and employs an isobaric terrain-following vertical coordinate. Many types of IB methods have been developed by researchers; a comprehensive review can be found in Mittal

Recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered the blood Pb reference value to 5 Î¼g/dL. The lower reference value combined with increased repurposing of postindustrial lands are heightening concerns and driving interest in reducing soil Pb exposures. As a result, regulatory decision makers may lower residential soil screening levels (SSLs), used in setting Pb cleanup levels, to levels that may be difficult to achieve, especially in urban areas. This study discusses challenges in remediation and bioavailability assessments of Pb in urban soils in the context of lower SSLs and identifies research needs to better address those challenges. Although in situ remediation with phosphate amendments is a viable option, the scope of the problem and conditions in urban settings may necessitate that SSLs be based on bioavailable rather than total Pb concentrations. However, variability in soil composition can influence bioavailability testing and soil amendment effectiveness. Finally, more data are urgently needed to better understand this variability and increase confidence in using these approaches in risk-based decision making, particularly in urban areas.

Recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lowered the blood Pb reference value to 5 Î¼g/dL. The lower reference value combined with increased repurposing of postindustrial lands are heightening concerns and driving interest in reducing soil Pb exposures. As a result, regulatory decision makers may lower residential soil screening levels (SSLs), used in setting Pb cleanup levels, to levels that may be difficult to achieve, especially in urban areas. This study discusses challenges in remediation and bioavailability assessments of Pb in urban soils in the context of lower SSLs and identifies research needs to better address those challenges. AlthoughmoreÂ Â» in situ remediation with phosphate amendments is a viable option, the scope of the problem and conditions in urban settings may necessitate that SSLs be based on bioavailable rather than total Pb concentrations. However, variability in soil composition can influence bioavailability testing and soil amendment effectiveness. Finally, more data are urgently needed to better understand this variability and increase confidence in using these approaches in risk-based decision making, particularly in urban areas.Â«Â less

Between 2006 and 2012 the Tritium Readiness Campaign Development and Testing Program produced significant advances in the understanding of in-reactor TPBAR performance. Incorporating these data into existing TPBAR performance models has improved permeation predictions, and the discrepancy between predicted and observed tritium permeation in the WBN1 coolant has been decreased by about 30%. However, important differences between predicted and observed permeation still remain, and there are significant knowledge gaps that hinder the ability to reliably predict other aspects of TPBAR performance such as tritium distribution, component integrity, and performance margins. Based on recommendations from recent Tritium Readiness Campaign workshops and reviews coupled with technical and programmatic priorities, high-priority activities were identified to address knowledge gaps in the near- (3-5 year), middle- (5-10 year), and long-term (10+ year) time horizons. It is important to note that there are many aspects to a well-integrated research and development program. The intent is not to focus exclusively on one aspect or another, but to approach the program in a holistic fashion. Thus, in addition to small-scale tritium science studies, ex-reactor tritium technology experiments such as TMED, and large-scale in-reactor tritium technology experiments such as TMIST, a well-rounded research and development program must also include continued analysis of WBN1 performance data and post-irradiation examination of TPBARs and lead use assemblies to evaluate model improvements and compare separate-effects and integral component behavior.

Transit networks are integral to the economy and to society, but at the same time they could allow terrorists to transport weapons of mass destruction into any city. Road networks are especially vulnerable, because they lack natural checkpoints unlike air networks that have security measures in place at all major airports. One approach to mitigate this risk is ensuring that every road route passes through at least one security checkpoint. Using the Ford-Fulkerson maximum-flow algorithm, we generate a minimum set of checkpoint locations within a ring-shaped buffer area surrounding the 50 largest US urban areas. We study how the number of checkpoints changes as we increase the buffer width to perform a cost-benefit analysis and to identify groups of cities that behave similarly. The set of required checkpoints is surprisingly small (10-124) despite the hundreds of thousands of road arcs in those areas, making it feasible to protect all major cities.

Canada geese (Branta canadensis) have become common in many urban areas, often creating nuisance problems for human residents. The presence of urban geese has raised concerns about the spread of disease, increased erosion, excessive noise, eutrophication of waterways, and general nuisance problems. Goose populations have grown due to an increase in urbanization resulting in an abundance of high quality food (urban grass) and suitable nesting sites, as well as a decrease in some predators. I monitored nest predation in the Chicago suburbs during the 2004 and 2005 nesting seasons using 3 nest monitoring techniques to identify predators: video cameras, plasticine eggs, and sign from nest using a classification tree analysis. Of 58 nests monitored in 2004 and 286 in 2005, only raccoons (Procyon lotor) and coyotes (Canis latrans) were identified as nest predators. Raccoons were responsible for 22-25% of depredated nests, but were rarely capable of depredating nests that were actively defended by a goose. Coyotes were responsible for 75-78% of all Canada goose nest depredation and were documented killing one adult goose and feeding on several others. The coyote is a top-level predator that had increased in many metropolitan areas in recent years. To determine if coyotes were actively hunting geese or eggs during the nesting season, I analyzed coyote habitat selection between nesting and pre-nesting or post-nesting seasons. Coyote home ranges (95% Minimum Convex Polygon) were calculated for 19 coyotes to examine third order habitat selection related to goose nest abundance. A 100 m buffer (buffer habitat) was created and centered on each waterway edge and contained 90% of all nests. Coyotes showed selection for habitats during all seasons. Buffer habitat was the top ranked habitat in both pre-nesting and nesting seasons, but dropped to third ranked in post-nesting season. Habitat selection across seasons was compared using a repeated measures MANOVA. Habitat selection

Fine particulate has become one of the biggest concerns in Italian cities pollution; the study of its composition is a powerful tool to evaluate the effects on health and identify pollution sources. PIXE is an established technique for particulate analysis (being multi-elemental, sensitive, fast, non-destructive and requiring no sample preparations) and has been extensively used, in combination with other IBA techniques, for particulate characterization in Italian urban environments. Here we report the preliminary results on the analysis of the aerosol collected, by two-stage continuous streaker samplers, in two Italian cities, Florence and Milan, during July 2001. Elemental concentrations have been extracted in the fine and coarse fractions, with hourly resolution, by PIXE-PIGE analysis, performed at the 3 MeV external proton beam INFN facility at the University of Florence.

Waste treatment facilities are often shared among different municipalities as a means of managing wastes more efficiently. Usually, management costs are assigned to each municipality depending on the size of the population or total amount of waste produced, regardless of important environmental aspects such as per capita waste generation or achievements in composting or recycling. This paper presents a feebate (fee+rebate) system aimed to foster urban waste reduction and recovery. The proposal suggests that municipalities achieving better results in their waste management performance (from an ecological viewpoint) be recompensated with a rebate obtained from a fee charged to those municipalities that are less environmentally sound. This is a dynamic and flexible instrument that would positively encourage municipalities to reduce waste whilst increasing the recycling.

We address the problem of coordinating online a continuous flow of connected and automated vehicles (CAVs) crossing two adjacent intersections in an urban area. We present a decentralized optimal control framework whose solution yields for each vehicle the optimal acceleration/deceleration at any time in the sense of minimizing fuel consumption. The solu- tion, when it exists, allows the vehicles to cross the intersections without the use of traffic lights, without creating congestion on the connecting road, and under the hard safety constraint of collision avoidance. The effectiveness of the proposed solution is validated through simulation considering two intersections located in downtown Boston, and it is shown that coordination of CAVs can reduce significantly both fuel consumption and travel time.

Land use/land cover (LULC) data are a vital component for nonpoint source pollution modeling. Most watershed hydrology and pollutant loading models use, in some capacity, LULC information to generate runoff and pollutant loading estimates. Simple equation methods predict runoff and pollutant loads using runoff coefficients or pollutant export coefficients that are often correlated to LULC type. Complex models use input variables and parameters to represent watershed characteristics and pollutant buildup and washoff rates as a function of LULC type. Whether using simple or complex models an accurate LULC dataset with an appropriate spatial resolution and level of detail is paramount for reliable predictions. The study presented in this paper compared and evaluated several LULC dataset sources for application in urban environmental modeling. The commonly used USGS LULC datasets have coarser spatial resolution and lower levels of classification than other LULC datasets. In addition, the USGS datasets do not accurately represent the land use in areas that have undergone significant land use change during the past two decades. We performed a watershed modeling analysis of three urban catchments in Los Angeles, California, USA to investigate the relative difference in average annual runoff volumes and total suspended solids (TSS) loads when using the USGS LULC dataset versus using a more detailed and current LULC dataset. When the two LULC datasets were aggregated to the same land use categories, the relative differences in predicted average annual runoff volumes and TSS loads from the three catchments were 8 to 14% and 13 to 40%, respectively. The relative differences did not have a predictable relationship with catchment size.

Highlights: â¢ Poor manure management can increase burden of disease and environmental impact. â¢ A low-maintenance vermicompost reactor was set-up in Kampala, Uganda. â¢ High material reduction (45.9%) and waste-to-biomass conversion (3.6% on a TS basis). â¢ Five year return on investment of 275% of system in Uganda. â¢ Technically and economically viable system for improved urban manure management. - Abstract: Inadequate organic waste management can contribute to the spread of diseases and have negative impacts on the environment. Vermicomposting organic waste could have dual beneficial effects by generating an economically viable animal feed protein in the form of worm biomass, while alleviating the negative effects of poor organic waste management. In this study, a low-maintenance vermicomposting system was evaluated as manure and food waste management system for small-holder farmers. A vermicomposting system using the earthworm species Eudrilus eugeniae and treating cow manure and food waste was set up in Kampala, Uganda, and monitored for 172 days. The material degradation and protein production rates were evaluated after 63 days and at the end of the experiment. The material reduction was 45.9% and the waste-to-biomass conversion rate was 3.5% in the vermicomposting process on a total solids basis. A possible increase in the conversion rate could be achieved by increasing the frequency of worm harvesting. Vermicomposting was found to be a viable manure management method in small-scale urban animal agriculture; the return of investment was calculated to be 280% for treating the manure of a 450 kg cow. The vermicompost was not sanitised, although hygiene quality could be improved by introducing a post-stabilisation step in which no fresh material is added. The value of the animal feed protein generated in the process can act as an incentive to improve current manure management strategies.

Highlights:  Composting toilets can be an alternative to flush based sanitation.  Many different composting toilet designs are available.  Composting is affected by moisture content, temperature, carbon to nitrogen ratio.  There are many barriers to composting toilets.  Research is needed in science based design of composting toilets. - Abstract: In todays flush based urban sanitation systems, toilets are connected to both the centralized water and wastewater infrastructures. This approach is not a sustainable use of our water and energy resources. In addition, in the U.S., there is a shortfall in funding for maintenance and upgrade of the water and wastewater infrastructures. The goal of this paper was to review the current knowledge on composting toilets since this technology is decentralized, requires no water, creates a value product (fertilizer) and can possibly reduce the burden on the current infrastructure as a sustainable sanitation approach. We found a large variety of composting toilet designs and categorized the different types of toilets as being self contained or central; single or multi chamber; waterless or with water/foam flush, electric or non-electric, and no-mix or combined collection. Factors reported as affecting the composting process and their optimum values were identified as; aeration, moisture content (5060%), temperature (4065 °C), carbon to nitrogen ratio (2535), pH (5.58.0), and porosity (3550%). Mass and energy balance models have been created for the composting process. However there is a literature gap in the use of this knowledge in design and operation of composting toilets. To evaluate the stability and safety of compost for use as fertilizer, various methods are available and the temperaturetime criterion approach is the most common one used. There are many barriers to the use of composting toilets in urban settings including public acceptance, regulations, and lack of knowledge and experience in composting toilet

Two coherent Doppler lidars from the US Army Research Laboratory (ARL) and Arizona State University (ASU) were deployed in the Joint Urban 2003 atmospheric dispersion field experiment (JU2003) held in Oklahoma City. The dual lidar data are used to evaluate the accuracy of the four-dimensional variational data assimilation (4DVAR) method and identify the coherent flow structures in the urban boundary layer. The objectives of the study are three-fold. The first objective is to examine the effect of eddy viscosity models on the quality of retrieved velocity data. The second objective is to determine the fidelity of single-lidar 4DVAR and evaluate the difference between single- and dual-lidar retrievals. The third objective is to correlate the retrieved flow structures with the ground building data. It is found that the approach of treating eddy viscosity as part of control variables yields better results than the approach of prescribing viscosity. The ARL single-lidar 4DVAR is able to retrieve radial velocity fields with an accuracy of 98% in the along-beam direction and 80-90% in the cross-beam direction. For the dual-lidar 4DVAR, the accuracy of retrieved radial velocity in the ARL cross-beam direction improves to 90-94%. By using the dual-lidar retrieved data as a reference, the single-lidar 4DVAR is able to recover fluctuating velocity fields with 70-80% accuracy in the along-beam direction and 60-70% accuracy in the cross-beam direction. Large-scale convective roll structures are found in the vicinity of downtown airpark and parks. Vortical structures are identified near the business district. Strong updrafts and downdrafts are also found above a cluster of restaurants.

Satellite remote sensing of tropospheric nitrogen dioxide (NO2) can provide valuable information for estimating surface nitrogen oxides (NOx) emissions. Using an exponentially-modified Gaussian (EMG) method and taking into account the effect of wind on observed NO2 distributions, we estimate three-year moving-average emissions of summertime NOx from 35 US urban areas directly from NO2 retrievals of the Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) during 2005â2014. Following the conclusions of previous studies that the EMG method provides robust and accurate emission estimates under strong-wind conditions, we derive top-down NOx emissions from each urban area by applying the EMG method to OMI data with windmoreÂ Â» speeds greater than 3â5 m s-1. Meanwhile, we find that OMI NO2 observations under weak-wind conditions (i.e., < 3 m s-1) are qualitatively better correlated with the surface NOx source strength in comparison to all-wind OMI maps; and therefore we use them to calculate the satellite-observed NO2 burdens of urban areas and compare with NOx emission estimates. The EMG results show that OMI-derived NOx emissions are highly correlated (R > 0.93) with weak-wind OMI NO2 burdens as well as bottom-up NOx emission estimates over 35 urban areas, implying a linear response of the OMI observations to surface emissions under weak-wind conditions. The simultaneous, EMG-obtained, effective NO2 lifetimes (~3.5 Â± 1.3 h), however, are biased low in comparison to the summertime NO2 chemical lifetimes. In general, isolated urban areas with NOx emission intensities greater than ~ 2 Mg h-1 produce statistically significant weak-wind signals in three-year average OMI data. From 2005 to 2014, we estimate that total OMI-derived NOx emissions over all selected US urban areas decreased by 49%, consistent with reductions of 43, 47, 49, and 44% in the total bottom-up NOx emissions, the sum of weak-wind OMI NO2 columns, the total weak-wind OMI NO2 burdens, and the averaged NO2 concentrations

Knowledge of the diversity and ecological function of the microbial consortia of James River in Virginia, USA, is essential to developing a more complete understanding of the ecology of this model river system. Metagenomic analysis of James River's planktonic microbial community was performed for the first time using an unamplified genomic library and a 16S rDNA amplicon library prepared and sequenced by Ion PGM and MiSeq, respectively. From the 0.46-Gb WGS library (GenBank:SRR1146621; MG-RAST:4532156.3), 4 x 106 reads revealed >3 x 106 genes, 240 families of prokaryotes, and 155 families of eukaryotes. From the 0.68-Gb 16S library (GenBank:SRR2124995; MG-RAST:4631271.3; EMB:2184), 4 x 106 reads revealed 259 families of eubacteria. Results of the WGS and 16S analyses were highly consistent and indicated that more than half of the bacterial sequences were Proteobacteria, predominantly Comamonadaceae. The most numerous genera in this group were Acidovorax (including iron oxidizers, nitrotolulene degraders, and plant pathogens), which accounted for 10 % of assigned bacterial reads. Polaromonas were another 6 % of all bacterial reads, with many assignments to groups capable of degrading polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Albidiferax (iron reducers) and Variovorax (biodegraders of a variety of natural biogenic compounds as well as anthropogenic contaminants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and endocrine disruptors) each accounted for an additional 3% of bacterial reads. Comparison of these data to other publically-available aquatic metagenomes revealed that this stretch of James River is highly similar to the upper Mississippi River, and that these river systems are more similar to aquaculture and sludge ecosystems than they are to lakes or to a pristine section of the upper Amazon River. Altogether, these analyses exposed previously unknown aspects of microbial biodiversity, documented

Knowledge of the diversity and ecological function of the microbial consortia of James River in Virginia, USA, is essential to developing a more complete understanding of the ecology of this model river system. Metagenomic analysis of James River's planktonic microbial community was performed for the first time using an unamplified genomic library and a 16S rDNA amplicon library prepared and sequenced by Ion PGM and MiSeq, respectively. From the 0.46-Gb WGS library (GenBank:SRR1146621; MG-RAST:4532156.3), 4 x 106 reads revealed >3 x 106 genes, 240 families of prokaryotes, and 155 families of eukaryotes. From the 0.68-Gb 16S library (GenBank:SRR2124995; MG-RAST:4631271.3; EMB:2184),moreÂ Â» 4 x 106 reads revealed 259 families of eubacteria. Results of the WGS and 16S analyses were highly consistent and indicated that more than half of the bacterial sequences were Proteobacteria, predominantly Comamonadaceae. The most numerous genera in this group were Acidovorax (including iron oxidizers, nitrotolulene degraders, and plant pathogens), which accounted for 10 % of assigned bacterial reads. Polaromonas were another 6 % of all bacterial reads, with many assignments to groups capable of degrading polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Albidiferax (iron reducers) and Variovorax (biodegraders of a variety of natural biogenic compounds as well as anthropogenic contaminants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and endocrine disruptors) each accounted for an additional 3% of bacterial reads. Comparison of these data to other publically-available aquatic metagenomes revealed that this stretch of James River is highly similar to the upper Mississippi River, and that these river systems are more similar to aquaculture and sludge ecosystems than they are to lakes or to a pristine section of the upper Amazon River. Altogether, these analyses exposed previously unknown aspects of microbial biodiversity, documented the ecological responses of microbes to urban effects, and revealed

The objectives of developing a Gas Systems Analysis Model (GSAM) are to create a comprehensive, non-proprietary, PC based model of domestic gas industry activity. The system is capable of assessing the impacts of various changes in the natural gas system within North America. The individual and collective impacts due to changes in technology and economic conditions are explicitly modeled in GSAM. Major gas resources are all modeled, including conventional, tight, Devonian Shale, coalbed methane, and low-quality gas sources. The modeling system asseses all key components of the gas industry, including available resources, exploration, drilling, completion, production, and processing practices, both for now and in the future. The model similarly assesses the distribution, storage, and utilization of natural gas in a dynamic market-based analytical structure. GSAM is designed to provide METC managers with a tool to project the impacts of future research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) benefits in order to determine priorities in a rapidly changing, market-driven gas industry.

Investigation of the effects of a nuclear device exploded in a urban environment such as the Chicago studied for this particular report have shown the importance on the effects from the urban canyons so typical of today's urban environment as compared to nuclear test event effects observed at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) and the Pacific Testing Area on which many of the typical legacy empirical codes are based on. This report first looks at the some of the data from nuclear testing that can give an indication of the damage levels that might be experienced due to a nuclear event. While it is well known that a above ground blast, even a ground burst, very poorly transmits energy into the ground ( < 1%) and the experimental results discussed here are for fully coupled detonations, these results do indicate a useful measure of the damage that might be expected. The second part of the report looks at effects of layering of different materials that typically would make up the near ground below surface environment that a shock would propagate through. As these simulations support and is widely known in the community, the effects of different material compositions in these layers modify the shock behavior and especially modify the energy dispersal and coupling into the basement structures. The third part of the report looks at the modification of the underground shock effects from a surface burst 1 KT device due to the presence of basements under the Chicago buildings. Without direct knowledge of the basement structure, a simulated footprint of a uniform 20m depth was assumed underneath each of the NGI defined buildings in the above ground environment. In the above ground case, the underground basement structures channel the energy along the line of site streets keeping the shock levels from falling off as rapidly as has been observed in unobstructed detonations. These simulations indicate a falloff of factors of 2 per scaled length as compared to 10 for the unobstructed

Fuel Cycle Research & Development Fuel Cycle Research & Development Fuel Cycle Research & Development The mission of the Fuel Cycle Research and Development (FCRD) program is to conduct research and development to help develop sustainable fuel cycles, as described in the Nuclear Energy Research and Development Roadmap. Sustainable fuel cycle options are those that improve uranium resource utilization, maximize energy generation, minimize waste generation, improve safety, and limit

Stream temperatures in urban watersheds are influenced to a high degree by anthropogenic impacts related to changes in landscape, stream channel morphology, and climate. These impacts can occur at small time and length scales, hence require analytical tools that consider the influence of the hydrologic regime, energy fluxes, topography, channel morphology, and near-stream vegetation distribution. Here we describe a modeling system that integrates the Distributed Hydrologic Soil Vegetation Model, DHSVM, with the semi-Lagrangian stream temperature model RBM, which has the capability to simulate the hydrology and water temperature of urban streams at high time and space resolutions, as well as a representation of the effects of riparian shading on stream energetics. We demonstrate the modeling system through application to the Mercer Creek watershed, a small urban catchment near Bellevue, Washington. The results suggest that the model is able both to produce realistic streamflow predictions at fine temporal and spatial scales, and to provide spatially distributed water temperature predictions that are consistent with observations throughout a complex stream network. We use the modeling construct to characterize impacts of land use change and near-stream vegetation change on stream temperature throughout the Mercer Creek system. We then explore the sensitivity of stream temperature to land use changes and modifications in vegetation along the riparian corridor.

Through its Advanced Scientific Computing (ASC) and Inertial Confinement Fusion (ICF) code development efforts, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) provides a world leading numerical simulation capability for the National HED/ICF program in support of the Stockpile Stewardship Program (SSP). In addition the ASC effort provides high performance computing platform capabilities upon which these codes are run. LLNL remains committed to, and will work with, the national HED/ICF program community to help insure numerical simulation needs are met and to make those capabilities available, consistent with programmatic priorities and available resources.

Highlights: Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Stakeholders. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Factors affecting performance waste management systems. Black-Right-Pointing-Pointer Questionnaire as Annex for waste management baseline assessment. - Abstract: Solid waste management is a challenge for the cities' authorities in developing countries mainly due to the increasing generation of waste, the burden posed on the municipal budget as a result of the high costs associated to its management, the lack of understanding over a diversity of factors that affect the different stages of waste management and linkages necessary to enable the entire handling system functioning. An analysis of literature on the work done and reported mainly in publications from 2005 to 2011, related to waste management in developing countries, showed that few articles give quantitative information. The analysis was conducted in two of the major scientific journals, Waste Management Journal and Waste Management and Research. The objective of this research was to determine the stakeholders' action/behavior that have a role in the waste management process and to analyze influential factors on the system, in more than thirty urban areas in 22 developing countries in 4 continents. A combination of methods was used in this study in order to assess the stakeholders and the factors influencing the performance of waste management in the cities. Data was collected from scientific literature, existing data bases, observations made during visits to urban areas, structured interviews with relevant professionals, exercises provided to participants in workshops and a questionnaire applied to stakeholders. Descriptive and inferential statistic methods were used to draw conclusions. The outcomes of the research are a comprehensive list of stakeholders that are relevant in the waste management systems and a set of factors that reveal the most important causes for the systems' failure. The information provided is very

The Graham/Greenlee County Area Development Plan evaluated the region-wide market potential for utilizing geothermal energy. The study identified five potential geothermal resource areas with temperatures less than 100{sup 0}C (212{sup 0}F). In addition, seven areas are inferred to contain higher temperature resources with the Clifton Hot Springs area having electrical potential. Geothermal resources are found to occur near Safford and Clifton, the two major population centers. Future population growth in the two counties is expected to average less than two percent per year over the next 40 years. Growth in the mining, trade and services economic sectors provide opportunities for the direct utilization of geothermal energy. A regional energy use analysis is included containing energy use and price projections. Water supplies are found to be adequate for urban needs, though agricultural and mineral water use may be limited in the future. The study also contains a preliminary economic analysis for two district heating systems as well as a section matching geothermal resources to potential users.

A {open_quotes}landforming{close_quotes} land development opportunity unique to metals mining is described. {open_quotes}Landforming{close_quotes}, wherein the earth`s surface is reconfigured with mining waste rock and tails for the capture of renewable energy, is proposed by the United States Bureau of Mines (USBM) to be ecologically acceptable and, in selected cases, economically superior to conventional mineral extraction, reclamation, and minesite abandonment practices. Landforming is primary land construction that uses mining waste and applies the principles of land overlay architecture. Landforms can be layered, shaped, and configured through the use of binders and plastic sheeting to the engineering specifications necessary for the support of physical structures and passage or retention of fluids. Landforms that are terraced and south facing (in the Northern Hemisphere) are an ideal mount for sun-tracking mirror (heliostat) arrays. In {open_quotes}blue sky{close_quotes}. solar-rich environments, the mirrors can be targeted on a common area to form a {open_quotes}solar furnace.{close_quotes} The heat generated at the focal point of the solar array can be used to flash generate steam and run a turbine electric generator. The solar steam power generation cycle coproducers distilled water that can be sprayed onto the surfaces of the landform to create {open_quotes}greenscape.{close_quotes} Waters not consumed or evaporated in the site greening process percolate into and are stored by the landform if it is underlain with plastic. The landform serves, in effect as a shallow aquifer. The terrace-landform development of mineral properties in remote, infrastructurally destitute areas creates renewable energy, sustainable, electric power-water {open_quotes}oases.{close_quotes} The landform development of mineral properties adjacent to metropolitan areas creates utilities expansions and recreational {open_quotes}greenspace{close_quotes} in areas of growing urban need.

Transit networks are integral to the economy and to society, but at the same time they could allow terrorists to transport weapons of mass destruction into any city. Road networks are especially vulnerable, because they lack natural checkpoints unlike air networks that have security measures in place at all major airports. One approach to mitigate this risk is ensuring that every road route passes through at least one security checkpoint. Using the Ford-Fulkerson maximum-flow algorithm, we generate a minimum set of checkpoint locations within a ring-shaped buffer area surrounding the 50 largest US urban areas. We study how the numbermoreÂ Â» of checkpoints changes as we increase the buffer width to perform a cost-benefit analysis and to identify groups of cities that behave similarly. The set of required checkpoints is surprisingly small (10-124) despite the hundreds of thousands of road arcs in those areas, making it feasible to protect all major cities.Â«Â less

Urban stormwater runoff is a significant, yet poorly understood, source of contaminants to the marine environment. One of the largest sources of stormwater inputs to Santa Monica Bay (California) is the Ballona Creek watershed. Receiving water and runoff water samples were collected during several storms in both the 1995--96 and 1996--97 wet seasons. Sea urchin fertilization tests indicated toxicity in most Ballona Creek stormwater samples; EC{sub 50} values were about 12--20%. Receiving water samples were also toxic, with the magnitude of effects generally corresponding to the concentration of runoff present. Selected Phase 1 TIE (toxicity identification evaluation) manipulations were applied to samples showing toxicity. Ballona Creek samples had a consistent response pattern; EDTA addition removed virtually all toxicity, implicating divalent trace metals as the probable toxic constituents. Santa Monica Bay surface water samples showed a similar response pattern but other manipulations also removed some toxicity. Toxicity of receiving water samples tended to degrade with storage, while runoff sample toxicity was more stable. Chemical analysis of runoff and comparison to spiking studies showed that concentrations of zinc and occasionally copper were sufficient to produce toxicity. Evaluation of the relative effectiveness of EDTA versus sodium thiosulfate in toxicity removal also suggested zinc as a likely cause of toxicity.

Urban waste management is becoming an increasingly complex task, absorbing a huge amount of resources, and having a major environmental impact. The design of a waste management system consists in various activities, and one of these is related to the location of waste collection sites. In this paper, we propose an integer programming model that helps decision makers in choosing the sites where to locate the unsorted waste collection bins in a residential town, as well as the capacities of the bins to be located at each collection site. This model helps in assessing tactical decisions through constraints that force each collection area to be capacitated enough to fit the expected waste to be directed to that area, while taking into account Quality of Service constraints from the citizens' point of view. Moreover, we propose an effective constructive heuristic approach whose aim is to provide a good solution quality in an extremely reduced computational time. Computational results on data related to the city of Nardo, in the south of Italy, show that both exact and heuristic approaches provide consistently better solutions than that currently implemented, resulting in a lower number of activated collection sites, and a lower number of bins to be used.

The Urban Dispersion Program is a multi-year project, funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, to better understand the flow and dispersion of airborne contaminants through and around the deep street canyons of New York City. The first tracer and meteorological field study was a limited study conducted during March 2005 near the Madison Square Garden in midtown Manhattan. Six safe, inert, gaseous perfluorocarbon tracers were released simultaneously at five street-level locations during two experimental days. In addition to collecting tracer data, meteorological data were also collected. Brookhaven National Laboratory conducted the bulk of the tracer and meteorological field efforts with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Stevens Institute of Technology assisting by measuring the vertical profile of winds. The Environmental Protection Agency worked with Brookhaven National Laboratory in accomplishing the personal exposure component of the study. This report presents some results from this analysis. In general, different release locations showed vastly different plume footprints for tracer materials, and the situation was made very complex with upwind and/or crosswind transport of tracer near street-level for the different release locations. Overall wind speeds and directions upwind and over the city were generally constant throughout each of the two experimental periods.

The Urban Dispersion Program March 2005 Field Study tracer releases, sampling, and analytical methods are described in detail. There were two days where tracer releases and sampling were conducted. A total of 16.0 g of six tracers were released during the first test day or Intensive Observation Period (IOP) 1 and 15.7 g during IOP 2. Three types of sampling instruments were used in this study. Sequential air samplers, or SAS, collected six-minute samples, while Brookhaven atmospheric tracer samplers (BATS) and personal air samplers (PAS) collected thirty-minute samples. There were a total of 1300 samples resulting from the two IOPs. Confidence limits in the sampling and analysis method were 20% as determined from 100 duplicate samples. The sample recovery rate was 84%. The integrally averaged 6-minute samples were compared to the 30-minute samples. The agreement was found to be good in most cases. The validity of using a background tracer to calculate sample volumes was examined and also found to have a confidence level of 20%. Methods for improving sampling and analysis are discussed. The data described in this report are available as Excel files. An additional Excel file of quality assured tracer data for use in model validation efforts is also available. The file consists of extensively quality assured BATS tracer data with background concentrations subtracted.

A study was made of some of the main traffic hubs in a Latin American metropolis, in order to determine the presence or absence of noise by means of noise measurements and acoustic mapping. To characterize noise in the evaluated road stretches, 232 measurements were taken at different points. The Predictor software package was used for the noise mapping calculations. Noise sensitive areas, e.g., hospitals, were identified in the evaluated road stretches. Noise maps were calculated for two hospitals, showing the current levels of noise that reach their facades. Hypothetical scenarios were simulated by making changes in the composition of traffic and total number of vehicles, and an assessment was made of the potential influence of these modifications in reducing the noise levels reaching the facades of the buildings in question. The simulations indicated that a 50% reduction in total traffic flow, or a 50% reduction in heavy vehicle traffic flow, would reduce the noise levels by about 3 dB(A). - Highlights: â¢ Evaluation of noise pollution in urban traffic hubs â¢ Street systems â¢ Environmental noise impacts â¢ Noise mapping.

teachers Teacher Development Programs LLNL Teacher Development LLNL's Science Education Program provides professional development instruction to in-service and pre-service middle school, high school, and community college science teachers

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has adopted a goal to generate 20% of the nationâs electricity from wind power by 2030. Achieving this â20% Wind Scenarioâ in 2030 requires acceleration of the current rate of wind project development. Offshore wind resources contribute substantially to the nationâs wind resource, yet to date no offshore wind turbines have been installed in the U.S. Progress developing offshore wind projects has been slowed by technological challenges, uncertainties about impacts to the marine environment, siting and permitting challenges, and viewshed concerns. To address challenges associated with siting and permitting, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) surveyed offshore wind project developers about siting and project development processes, their experience with the environmental permitting process, and the role of coastal and marine spatial planning (CMSP) in development of the offshore wind industry. Based on the responses to survey questions, we identify several priority recommendations to support offshore wind development. Recommendations also include considerations for developing supporting industries in the U.S. and how to use Coastal and Marine Spatial Planning (CMSP) to appropriately consider ocean energy among existing ocean uses. In this report, we summarize findings, discuss the implications, and suggest actions to improve the permitting and siting process.

This Building Technologies Office (BTO) Research and Development (R&D) Roadmap identifies priority windows and building envelope R&D areas of interest. Cost and performance targets are identified for each key R&D area. The roadmap describes the technical and market challenges to be overcome, R&D activities and milestones, key stakeholders, and potential energy savings that could result if cost and performance targets are met. Methods for improving technology performance and specific strategies for reducing installed costs and mitigating any other market barriers, which would increase the likelihood of mass-market technology adoption, are identified. This roadmap is a useful resource for public and private decision makers evaluating and pursuing high-impact R&D focused on advancing next-generation energy efficient windows and building envelope technologies.

This report is the proceedings of the Seminar on geothermal development opportunities in developing countries, sponsored by the Geothermal Division of the US Department of Energy and presented by the National Geothermal Association. The overall objectives of the seminar are: (1) Provide sufficient information to the attendees to encourage their interest in undertaking more geothermal projects within selected developing countries, and (2) Demonstrate the technological leadership of US technology and the depth of US industry experience and capabilities to best perform on these projects.

This book is a study of the issues that developing countries face in planning and implementing mineral development, taking as case studies Botswana, Sierra Leone, Zambia, Tanzania, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea and the developed states of Quebec and Western Australia. The authors consider the major aspects of the matter including organization and administration; regulation; taxation and surplus distribution; the dynamics of such instruments as royalty, rent resource tax and capital allowances under various cost/price scenarios; and selected mining agreements and their key provisions. They stress throughout the need for foreign investment while maximizing the economic benefits reaped from exhaustible resources.

The historical focus of the electric utility industry has been central station power plants. These plants are usually sited outside urban areas and electricity was delivered via high voltage transmission lines. Several things are beginning to change this historical precedent One is the popular concern with EMF as a health hazard. This has rendered the construction of new lines as well as upgrading old ones very difficult. Installation of power generating equipment near the customer enables the utility to better utilize existing transmission and distribution networks and defer investments. Power quality and lark of disturbances and interruptions is also becoming increasingly more important to many customers. Grid connected, but dedicated small power plants can greatly improve power quality. Finally the development of high efficiency, low emission, modular fuel cells promises near pollution free localized power generation with an efficiency equal to or exceeding that of even the most efficient central power stations.

Since the first nuclear power was engaged in Korean electricity grid in 1978, intensive research and development has been focused on localization and standardization of large pressurized water reactors (PWRs) aiming at providing Korean peninsula and beyond with economical and safe power source. With increased priority placed on the safety since Chernobyl accident, Korean nuclear power R and D activity has been diversified into advanced PWR, small modular PWR and generation IV reactors. After the outbreak of Fukushima accident, inherently safe small modular reactor (SMR) receives growing interest in Korea and Europe. In this paper, we will describe recent status of evolving designs of SMR, their advantages and challenges. In particular, the conceptual design of lead-bismuth cooled SMR in Korea, URANUS with 40â¼70 MWe is examined in detail. This paper will cover a framework of the program and a strategy for the successful deployment of small modular reactor how the goals would entail and the approach to collaboration with other entities.

Development Systems Development-This key technology maintains a portfolio of projects that focus on the research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) of SOFC power systems. Project participants (Industry Teams) are independently developing unique and proprietary SOFC technology suitable for either syngas- or natural gas fueled applications. The Industry Teams are responsible for the design and manufacture of the fuel cells, integration of cells hardware development, manufacturing process

PNNL VOLTTRON TM Application Development Srinivas Katipamula DOE Building Technologies Office: Technical Meeting on Software Framework for Transactive Energy July 23-24, 2014 1 Presentation Outline Application Development Environment PNNL Developed VOLTTRON Apps VOLTTRON Services Used by PNNL Apps Walkthrough of an Application Development Lessons Learned Concluding Remarks 3 Application Development Environment and Language Support VOLTTRON is a native Linux application Can be run on PC and MAC

No data are available on whether rising carbon dioxide concentration [CO2] or increased air temperature can alter the establishment and persistence of common ragweed (Ambrosia artemisiifolia L.) within a plant community following soil disturbance. To determine ragweed longevity, we exposed disturbed soil with a common seed bank population to an in situ temperature and [CO2] gradient along an urban-rural transect beginning in early 2002. No other consistent differences in meteorological variables (e.g. wind speed, humidity, PAR, tropospheric ozone) as a function of urbanization were documented over the course of the study (2002-2005). Above-ground measurements of biomass over this period demonstrated that ragweed along the transect responded to urban induced increases in [CO2]/temperature with peak biomass being observed at this location by the end of 2003. However, by the Fall of 2004, and continuing through 2005, urban ragweed populations had dwindled to a few plants. The temporal decline in ragweed populations was not associated with increased disease, herbivory or auto-allelopathy, but was part of a demographic reduction in the total number of annual plant species observed for the urban location. In a separate experiment, we showed that such a demographic shift is consistent with CO2/temperature induced increases in biomass and litter accumulation, with a subsequent reduction in germination / survival of annual plant species. Overall, these data indicate that [CO2]/temperature differences associated with urbanization may increase initial ragweed productivity and pollen production, but suggest that long-term, multi-year persistence of ragweed in the urban macro-environment may be dependent on other factors.

The National Wind Coordinating Collaborative (NWCC) is a consensus-based stakeholder group comprised of representatives from the utility, wind industry, environmental, consumer, regulatory, power marketer, agricultural, tribal, economic development, and state and federal government sectors. The purpose of the NWCC is to support the development of an environmentally, economically, and politically sustainable commercial market for wind power (NWCC 2010). The NWCC has been funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) since its inception in 1994. In order to evaluate the impact of the work of the NWCC and how this work aligns with DOEâs strategic priorities, DOE tasked Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to conduct a series of informal interviews with a small sample of those involved with NWCC.

The Hanford Site Development Plan (Site Development Plan) is intended to guide the short- and long-range development and use of the Hanford Site. All acquisition, development, and permanent facility use at the Hanford Site will conform to the approved plan. The Site Development Plan also serves as the base document for all subsequent studies that involve use of facilities at the Site. This revision is an update of a previous plan. The executive summary presents the highlights of the five major topics covered in the Site Development Plan: general site information, existing conditions, planning analysis, Master Plan, and Five-Year Plan. 56 refs., 67 figs., 31 tabs.

A terrorist attack in a U.S. city utilizing biological weapons could have severe consequences. A biological agent could be aerosolized and emitted into the air in the middle of a city, invisibly traveling with the winds, and dosing an unknowing populace. The magnitude of the problem would only be revealed as sick people started arriving several days later at hospitals with symptoms, many already too ill to be saved. A national program has deployed a network of biological agent collectors in U.S. cities to provide early detection of a bio-weapon attack, thereby hastening medical intervention and potentially saving many thousands of lives. In fact, the most effective treatment takes place prior to infection or in its early stages and early warning might reduce the disease progression and, consequently, the possibility of an outbreak. If a biological attack were to occur in a city, one or more collectors may register hits with specific dosages and the city would be alerted that an attack had taken place. This piece of information alone, however, would not be enough to determine how serious the attack was, i.e., how much biological agent was released into the air and where the bio-plume traveled. The first responders and public health communities will want to know what regions were impacted, how many persons might get sick, which people most need medical supplies, and where to clean up. The law enforcement community will want to look for forensic evidence at the release location. The Bio-Agent Event Reconstruction Tool (BERT) has been developed in order to recreate what might have happened during an airborne biological agent attack based on biological agent collector measurements and wind collectors mounted around a city. The tool can be used to estimate possible release areas while eliminating other areas, and can estimate bounds on the amount of material released. The tool can then be used to project forward from the possible source areas to estimate potential hazard

Working within the context of the Southern States Biobased Alliance (SSBA) and with officials in each state, the Southern States Energy Board (SSEB) is identifying bioenergy-related policies and programs within each state to determine their impact on the development, deployment or use of bioenergy. In addition, SSEB will determine which policies have impacted industry's efforts to develop, deploy or use biobased technologies or products. As a result, SSEB will work with the Southern States Biobased Alliance to determine how policy changes might address any negative impacts or enhance positive impacts. In addition to analysis of domestic policies and programs, this project will include the development of a U.S.-Brazil Biodiesel Pilot Project. The purpose of this effort is to promote and facilitate the commercialization of biodiesel and bioenergy production and demand in Brazil.

Working within the context of the Southern States Biobased Alliance (SSBA) and with officials in each state, the Southern States Energy Board (SSEB) is identifying bioenergy-related policies and programs within each state to determine their impact on the development, deployment or use of bioenergy. In addition, SSEB will determine which policies have impacted industry's efforts to develop, deploy or use biobased technologies or products. As a result, SSEB will work with the Southern States Biobased Alliance to determine how policy changes might address any negative impacts or enhance positive impacts. In addition to analysis of domestic policies and programs, this project will include the development of a U.S.-Brazil Biodiesel Pilot Project. The purpose of this effort is to promote and facilitate the commercialization of biodiesel and bioenergy production and demand in Brazil.

This Challenge Home is one of 42 homes in a micro-community of ultra-modern, energy-efficient homes built by Dwell Development on an urban gray-field site in South Seattle. Every home will achieve a 5-Star Built Green rating from the regional master builders association and meet the criteria of the Northwest ENERGY STAR program, which is more strict than the national ENERGY STAR criteria. Also, the home won a 2013 Housing Innovation Award in the "systems builder" category.

Project Objective: To lead New York State to increase its usage of solar electric systems. The expected outcome is that appropriate technologies will be made available which in turn will help to eliminate barriers to solar energy usage in New York State. Background: The Solar Energy Consortium has been created to lead New York State research on solar systems specifically directed at doubling the efficiency, halving the cost and reducing the cost of installation as well as developing unique form factors for the New York City urban environment.

The study described in this report is part of a project sponsored by the Toronto Atmospheric Fund, performed at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, to assess the potential role of surface property modifications on energy, meteorology, and air quality in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), Canada. Numerical models were used to establish the possible meteorological and ozone air-quality impacts of increased urban albedo and vegetative fraction, i.e., ''cool-city'' strategies that can mitigate the urban heat island (UHI), significantly reduce urban energy consumption, and improve thermal comfort, particularly during periods of hot weather in summer. Mitigation is even more important during critical heat wave periods with possible increased heat-related hospitalization and mortality. The evidence suggests that on an annual basis cool-city strategies are beneficial, and the implementation of such measures is currently being investigated in the U.S. and Canada. We simulated possible scenari os for urban heat-island mitigation in the GTA and investigated consequent meteorological changes, and also performed limited air-quality analysis to assess related impacts. The study was based on a combination of mesoscale meteorological modeling, Lagrangian (trajectory), and photochemical trajectory modeling to assess the potential meteorological and ozone air-quality impacts of cool-city strategies. As available air-quality and emissions data are incompatible with models currently in use at LBNL, our air-quality analysis was based on photochemical trajectory modeling. Because of questions as to the accuracy and appropriateness of this approach, in our opinion this aspect of the study can be improved in the future, and the air-quality results discussed in this report should be viewed as relatively qualitative. The MM5 meteorological model predicts a UHI in the order of 2 to 3 degrees C in locations of maxima, and about 1 degree C as a typical value over most of the urban area

Working within the context of the Southern States Biobased Alliance (SSBA) and with officials in each state, the Southern States Energy Board (SSEB) is identifying bioenergy-related policies and programs within each state to determine their impact on the development, deployment or use of bioenergy. In addition, SSEB will determine which policies have impacted industry's efforts to develop, deploy or use biobased technologies or products. As a result, SSEB will work with the Southern States Biobased Alliance to determine how policy changes might address any negative impacts or enhance positive impacts.

Working within the context of the Southern States Biobased Alliance (SSBA) and with officials in each state, the Southern States Energy Board (SSEB) is identifying bioenergy-related policies and programs within each state to determine their impact on the development, deployment or use of bioenergy. In addition, SSEB will determine which policies have impacted industry's efforts to develop, deploy or use biobased technologies or products. As a result, SSEB will work with the Southern States Biobased Alliance to determine how policy changes might address any negative impacts or enhance positive impacts.

The Federal Energy Development Assistance tool provides information for Tribes about federal grant, loan, and technical assistance programs to support energy development and deployment in Indian Country and Alaska Native villages.

Phosphoric Acid Fuel Cell Technology Research Association (PAFC-TRA) and New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) have been conducting a joint project on development of a 5000kW urban energy center type PAFC power plant (pressurized) and a 1000kW on-site PAFC power plant (non-pressurized). The objective of the technical development of 1000kW on-site PAFC power plant is to realize a medium size power plant with an overall efficiency of over 70% and an electrical efficiency of over 36%, that could be installed in a large building as a cogeneration system. The components and system integration development work and the plant design were performed in 1991 and 1992. Manufacturing of the plant and installation at the test site were completed in 1994. PAC test was carried out in 1994, and generation test was started in January 1995. Demonstration test is scheduled for 1995 and 1996.

S>An improved photographic developer is presented having very high energy development fine grain characteristics and a long shelf life. These characteristics are obtained by the use of aminoacetic acid in the developer, the other constituents of which are: sodium sulfite, hydroquinone, sodiunn borate, boric acid and potassium bromide, 1-phenyl-3-pyrazolidone.

This meeting has been held every other year for the past twenty-two years and is the only regularly held meeting focused specifically on plant development. Topics covered included: patterning in developing tissues; short and long distance signaling; differentiation of cell types; the role of epigenetics in development; evolution; growth.

Epidemiological data show an association between exposure to elevated levels of particulate matter (PM), in particular the fine fraction (<2.5{mu}m in diameter), and an increase in cardiovascular mortality and respiratory symptoms. The aim of this study was to compare the in vitro toxicity of coarse and fine particulate matter collected with a cascade impactor during winter in an urban area of Rome in relation to their physicochemical characterization (size distribution and chemical composition) as assessed by analytical electron microscopy (SEM/EDX). The X-ray microanalysis data of single particles of coarse and fine matter were analyzed by hierarchical cluster analysis to determine the principal component of the two granulometric fractions. The main chemical difference between the two fractions was the greater abundance of carbonaceous particles in the fine fraction. We compared the ability of coarse and fine fractions, carbon black (CB), and residual oil fly ash (ROFA) to induce arachidonic acid release and tumor necrosis factor-{alpha} (TNF-{alpha}) production in the monocytic-macrophagic RAW 264.7 cell line at concentrations of 30 and 120{mu}g/mL. Our results showed that CB and ROFA were consistently less effective than both fractions of urban particles at inducing an inflammatory reaction in RAW 264.7 cells. Both PM fractions dose-dependently increased TNF-{alpha} production in RAW 264.7 cells after 5 and 24h of incubation, and only the TNF-{alpha} production induced by coarse particles at 30{mu}g/mL decreased significantly (P<0.01) after 24h of treatment. In our in vitro model the winter fine fraction was more reactive than the winter coarse fraction, in contrast to a previously examined summer sample. In the summer sample, coarse particles produced higher levels of inflammatory mediators than fine particles and the CB was consistently less effective than the urban particles. The different behaviors between summer and winter urban fractions may be due to

The 1996 High-Temperature Superconducting Wire Development Workshop was held on January 31--February 1 at the Crown Plaza Tampa Westshore in Tampa, Florida. The meeting was hosted by Tampa Electric Company and sponsored by the Department of Energy`s Superconductivity Program for Electric Systems. The meeting focused on recent high-temperature superconducting wire development activities in the Department of Energy`s Superconductivity Systems program. Tampa Electric`s Greg Ramon began the meeting by giving a perspective on the changes now occurring in the utility sector. Major program wire development accomplishments during the past year were then highlighted, particularly the world record achievements at Los Alamos and Oak Ridge National Laboratories. The meeting then focussed on three priority technical issues: thallium conductors; AC losses in HTS conductors; and coated conductors on textured substrates. Following in-depth presentations, working groups were formed in each technology area to discuss and critique the most important current research and development issues. The working groups identified research areas that have the potential for greatly enhancing the wire development effort. These areas are discussed in the summary reports from each of the working groups. This document is a compilation of the workshop proceedings including all general session presentations and summary reports from the working groups.

The paper reports research involving three costâbenefit analyses performed on different ITS schemes (Active Traffic Management, Intelligent Speed Adaptation and the Automated Highway System) on one of the UK's busiest highways â the M42. The environmental scope of the assets involved is widened to take into account the possibility of new technology linked by ICT and located within multiple spatial regions. The areas focused on in the study were data centre energy emissions, the embedded emissions of the road-side infrastructure, vehicle tailpipe emissions, additional hardware required by the vehicles (if applicable) and safety, and all aspects of sustainability. Dual discounting is applied which aims to provide a separate discount rate for environmental elements. For ATM, despite the energy costs of the data centre, the initial implementation costs and mitigation costs of its embedded emissions, a high costâbenefit ratio of 5.89 is achieved, although the scheme becomes less effective later on its lifecycle due to rising costs of energy. ISA and AHS generate a negative result, mainly due to the cost of getting the vehicle on the road. In order to negate these costs, the pricing of the vehicle should be scaled depending upon the technology that is outfitted. Retrofitting on vehicles without the technology should be paid for by the driver. ATM will offset greenhouse gas emissions by 99 kt of CO{sub 2} equivalency over a 25 year lifespan. This reduction has taken into account the expected improvement in vehicle technology. AHS is anticipated to save 280 kt of CO{sub 2} equivalency over 15 years of operational usage. However, this offset is largely dependent on assumptions such as the level of market penetration. - Highlights: â¢ Three costâbenefit analyses are applied to inter-urban intelligent transport. â¢ For ATM, a high costâbenefit ratio of 5.89 is achieved. â¢ ATM offsets greenhouse gas emissions by 99 kt of CO{sub 2} equivalency over 25 years. â

This study presents the microbiological characterization of the anaerobic sludge used in a two-stage anaerobic reactor for the treatment of organic fraction of urban solid waste (OFUSW). This treatment is one alternative for reducing solid waste in landfills at the same time producing a biogas (CH{sub 4} and CO{sub 2}) and an effluent that can be used as biofertilizer. The system was inoculated with sludge from a wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) (Rio Frio Plant in Bucaramanga-Colombia) and a methanogenic anaerobic digester for the treatment of pig manure (Mesa de los Santos in Santander). Bacterial populations were evaluated by counting groups related to oxygen sensitivity, while metabolic groups were determined by most probable number (MPN) technique. Specific methanogenic activity (SMA) for acetate, formate, methanol and ethanol substrates was also determined. In the acidogenic reactor (R1), volatile fatty acids (VFA) reached values of 25,000 mg L{sup -1} and a concentration of CO{sub 2} of 90%. In this reactor, the fermentative population was predominant (10{sup 5}-10{sup 6} MPN mL{sup -1}). The acetogenic population was (10{sup 5} MPN mL{sup -1}) and the sulphate-reducing population was (10{sup 4}-10{sup 5} MPN mL{sup -1}). In the methanogenic reactor (R2), levels of CH{sub 4} (70%) were higher than CO{sub 2} (25%), whereas the VFA values were lower than 4000 mg L{sup -1}. Substrate competition between sulphate-reducing (10{sup 4}-10{sup 5} MPN mL{sup -1}) and methanogenic bacteria (10{sup 5} MPN mL{sup -1}) was not detected. From the SMA results obtained, acetoclastic (2.39 g COD-CH{sub 4} g{sup -1} VSS{sup -1} day{sup -1}) and hydrogenophilic (0.94 g COD-CH{sub 4} g{sup -1} VSS{sup -1} day{sup -1}) transformations as possible metabolic pathways used by methanogenic bacteria is suggested from the SMA results obtained. Methanotrix sp., Methanosarcina sp., Methanoccocus sp. and Methanobacterium sp. were identified.

Several MPACT BCPs were executed in February, reflecting the shift in MPACT priorities directed late last year. Work continued on the FY2014 IPL, also bringing it in line with the new priorities. Preparations were made for the March MPACT Working Group meeting, in conjunction with Savannah River which is hosting the meeting. Steps were taken to initiate a new project with the World Institute for Nuclear Security, including discussions with WINS staff and preliminary work on the required procurement documentation. Several hardware issues were worked through. The newest detector array is working at LANL. A thorough analysis of previously collected Pu sample data using recently developed analysis code with improved spectral energy calibrations was completed. We now have a significantly better understanding of measurement uncertainties. Post-test analyses of the salt and sensor material for the first sensor test are almost complete. Sensor testing with different arrangements will continue and will be oriented based on post-test analysis of the first sensor test. Sensor materials for the next couple of tests are being fabricated. Materials with different annealing temperatures are being prepared for analysis. Fast Neutron Imaging to Quantify Nuclear Materials - The imager detectors repairs are complete and work with the imager is under way. The milestone requiring a report on LANSCE experiments was completed and submitted. Analysis of previous experiments and comparisons to simulations is near complete. Results are being compared with previous LANSCE-LSDS and RPI results. Additional data library (TENDL) is also being checked to see whether there are differences in the simulation results. The mid-year MIP Monitor project accomplishments and progress was presented at the MPACT meeting held in March at SRNL. Discussions around the meeting included inquiries into the feasibility of collecting process measurement data at H-Canyon, and it was explored further after the

Development continues once an individual enters into the SES. Faced with constant challenges, changing technologies and a fluid environment, executives need to pursue ongoing professional executive development. It is crucial that executives continue to strengthen and reinforce their Executive Core Qualifications (ECQs), skills and knowledge. http://www.opm.gov/ses/executive_development/index.asp Federal agencies are required by law (Title 5, U.S. Code, Section 3396) to establish programs for the continuing development of senior executives. DOEâs Office of Learning & Workforce Development is available to assist you in determining a course of action your executive development. They have a guidebook that âcontains descriptions of over 350 courses, offered by 56 colleges and universities throughout the continental United States as well as by the Office of Personnel Management.â

Development WINDExchange provides software applications and publications to help individuals, developers, local governments, and utilities make decisions about wind power. Projecting costs and benefits of new installations, including the economic development impacts created, is a key element in looking at potential wind applications. Communities, states, regions, job markets (i.e., construction, operations and maintenance), the tax base, tax revenues, and others can be positively affected. These

Regional Economic Development Regional Economic Development Supporting companies in every stage of development through access to technology, technical assistance or investment Questions Richard P. Feynman Center for Innovation Regional Programs (505) 665-9090 New Mexico Small Business Assistance Email Venture Acceleration Fund Email DisrupTECH Email SBIR/STTR Email FCI facilitates commercialization in New Mexico to accelerate and enhance our efforts to convert federal and state research

There are recognizable legal elements in all of the international arrangements for petroleum development currently in use but no arrangements are exactly like the typical American oil and gas lease. This article discusses differences and approaches to the differences in legal aspects of international petroleum development agreements. Topics covered include the following: oil and national sovereignty; obtaining a development agreement; concession and production sharing agreements; participation; differences among agreements.

The article discusses how Shaft Drillers International (SDI) is breaking new ground in shaft development and ground stabilization. Techniques of blind shaft drilling and raise bore shaft developmentdeveloped by SDI are briefly explained. An associated company, Coastal Drilling East, deals with all types of ground improvement such as pre-grouting work for shafts, grouting of poor soil and water leaks into the mine. 3 photos.

The author presents this paper with three main thrusts. The first is to discuss the implementation of renewable energy options in China, the second is to identify the key project development steps necessary to implement such programs, and finally is to develop recommendations in the form of key issues which must be addressed in developing such a program, and key technical assistance needs which must be addressed to make such a program practical.

transims TRANSIMS Interface Development TRACC RESEARCH Computational Fluid Dynamics Computational Structural Mechanics Transportation Systems Modeling TRANSIMS Studio (Figure 1) has been developed by TRACC for the TRANSIMS community as part of the TRANSIMS Open Source project. It provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for TRANSIMS by combining a number of components that work seamlessly with each other. The visible part of the IDE is the graphical user interface (GUI) that allows

INSIGHTS FROM A DEVELOPER JENNIFER BREDT DEVELOPMENT MANAGER RES Americas Inc. OCTOBER 26, 2010 AGENDA * INTRODUCTION AND RES OVERVIEW * GROWTH OF THE WIND INDUSTRY IN THE US * CHALLENGES CURRENTLY FACING THE INDUSTRY * WHERE WE ARE HEADED ABOUT - RES Americas Inc. CURRENT CHALLENGES THE FUTURE GROWTH YEARS OVERVIEW * Leader in wind power development and construction ï Established in US in 1997 in Tehachapi, CA; UK parent active in wind since 1982 ï 3,946 MW of completed construction

Energy is central to current concerns about sustainable human development, affecting economic and social development; economic growth, the local, national, regional, and global environment; the global climate; a host of social concerns, including poverty, population, and health, the balance of payments, and the prospects for peace. Energy is not an end in itself, but rather the means to achieve the goals of sustainable human development. The energy systems of most developing countries are in serious crisis involving insufficient levels of energy services, environmental degradation, inequity, poor technical and financial performance, and capital scarcity. Approximately 2.5 billion people in the developing countries have little access to commercial energy supplies. Yet the global demand for energy continues to grow: total primary energy is projected to grow from 378 exajoules (EJ) per year in 1990 to 571 EJ in 2020, and 832 EJ in 2050. If this increase occurs using conventional approaches and energy sources, already serious local (e.g., indoor and urban air pollution), regional (eg., acidification and land degradation), and global (e.g., climate change) environmental problems will be critically aggravated. There is likely to be inadequate capital available for the needed investments in conventional energy sources. Current approaches to energy are thus not sustainable and will, in fact, make energy a barrier to socio-economic development. What is needed now is a new approach in which energy becomes an instrument for sustainable development. The two major components of a sustainable energy strategy are (1) more efficient energy use, especially at the point of end-use, and (2) increased use of renewable sources of energy. The UNDP Initiative for Sustainable Energy (UNISE) is designed to harness opportunities in these areas to build upon UNDP`s existing energy activities to help move the world toward a more sustainable energy strategy by helping program countries.

The National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) interfaces with the User Community and manages the coordination of isotope production across the facilities and business operations involved in the production, sale, and distribution of isotopes. A virtual center, the NIDC is funded by the Isotope Development and Production for Research and Applications (IDPRA) subprogram of the Office of Nuclear Physics in the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science. The Isotope subprogram supports the production, and the development of production techniques of radioactive and stable isotopes that are in short supply for research and applications. Isotopes are high-priority commodities of strategic importance for the Nation and are essential for energy, medical, and national security applications and for basic research; a goal of the program is to make critical isotopes more readily available to meet domestic U.S. needs. This subprogram is steward of the Isotope Production Facility (IPF) at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), the Brookhaven Linear Isotope Producer (BLIP) facility at BNL, and hot cell facilities for processing isotopes at ORNL, BNL and LANL. The subprogram also coordinates and supports isotope production at a suite of university, national laboratory, and commercial accelerator and reactor facilities throughout the Nation to promote a reliable supply of domestic isotopes. The National Isotope Development Center (NIDC) at ORNL coordinates isotope production across the many facilities and manages the business operations of the sale and distribution of isotopes.

Since January 1997, the US/China Energy and Environmental Technology Center (EETC) in Beijing has been jointly operated by Tulane University and Tsinghua University. EETC is established to encourage the adoption of technologies for energy production with improved environmental performance which are essential for supporting economic growth and managing the Global Warming and Climate Change issues. International cooperation is critical to insure the environmental and energy security on a global basis. For example, the US has acquired a great deal of useful experience in clean coal technology which has been demonstrated with major utilities in commercial operations. The adaption of, and the installation of, clean coal technology should be given high priority. Worldwide, the continuous exchange of information and technology between developed and developing nations relating to the current and future clean coal technologies is of great importance. Developed nations which possess environmental responsive technologies and financial resources should work closely with developing nations to facilitate technology transfer and trade of technologies. International cooperation will lower the cost of deploying clean coal technologies directed toward the clean production of energy. This paper presents the updated activities of EETC on facilitating technology transfer and promoting the clean use of coal to satisfy growing energy demand in China.

The research and development project supported the engineering, design and implementation of on-road Electric Vehicle (âEVâ) charging technologies. It included development of potential solutions for DC fast chargers (âDCFCâ) capable of converting high voltage AC power to the DC power required by EVs. Additional development evaluated solutions related to the packaging of power electronic components and enclosure design, as well as for the design and evaluation of EV charging stations. Research compared different charging technologies to identify optimum applications in a municipal fleet. This project collected EV usage data and generated a report demonstrating that EVs, when supported by adequate charging infrastructure, are capable of replacing traditional internal combustion vehicles in many municipal applications. The projectâs period of performance has demonstrated various methods of incorporating EVs into a municipal environment, and has identified three general categories for EV applications: - Short Commute: Defined as EVs performing in limited duration, routine commutes. - Long Commute: Defined as tasks that require EVs to operate in longer daily mileage patterns. - Critical Needs: Defined as the need for EVs to be ready at every moment for indefinite periods. Together, the City of Charlottesville, VA (the âCityâ) and Aker Wade Power Technologies, LLC (âAker Wadeâ) concluded that the EV has a viable position in many municipal fleets but with limited recommendation for use in Critical Needs applications such as Police fleets. The report also documented that, compared to internal combustion vehicles, BEVs have lower vehicle-related greenhouse gas (âGHGâ) emissions and contribute to a reduction of air pollution in urban areas. The enhanced integration of EVs in a municipal fleet can result in reduced demand for imported oil and reduced municipal operating costs. The conclusions indicated in the projectâs Engineering Report (see

Presentation from the 2011 Water Peer Review in which principal investigator discusses project progress to develop a representative set of Reference Models (RM) for the MHK industry to develop baseline cost of energy (COE) and evaluate key cost component/system reduction pathways.